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Our Little Danish Cousin




THE

Little Cousin Series

(TRADE MARK)

    Each volume illustrated with six or more full page plates in
    tint. Cloth, 12mo, with decorative cover
    per volume, 60 cents


LIST OF TITLES

    BY MARY HAZELTON WADE, MARY F.
    NIXON-ROULET, BLANCHE MCMANUS,
    CLARA V. WINLOW, FLORENCE E.
    MENDEL AND OTHERS

    =Our Little African Cousin=
    =Our Little Alaskan Cousin=
    =Our Little Arabian Cousin=
    =Our Little Argentine Cousin=
    =Our Little Armenian Cousin=
    =Our Little Australian Cousin=
    =Our Little Austrian Cousin=
    =Our Little Belgian Cousin=
    =Our Little Bohemian Cousin=
    =Our Little Boer Cousin=
    =Our Little Brazilian Cousin=
    =Our Little Bulgarian Cousin=
    =Our Little Canadian Cousin=
    =Our Little Chinese Cousin=
    =Our Little Cossack Cousin=
    =Our Little Cuban Cousin=
    =Our Little Danish Cousin=
    =Our Little Dutch Cousin=
    =Our Little Egyptian Cousin=
    =Our Little English Cousin=
    =Our Little Eskimo Cousin=
    =Our Little French Cousin=
    =Our Little German Cousin=
    =Our Little Grecian Cousin=
    =Our Little Hawaiian Cousin=
    =Our Little Hindu Cousin=
    =Our Little Hungarian Cousin=
    =Our Little Indian Cousin=
    =Our Little Irish Cousin=
    =Our Little Italian Cousin=
    =Our Little Japanese Cousin=
    =Our Little Jewish Cousin=
    =Our Little Korean Cousin=
    =Our Little Malayan (Brown) Cousin=
    =Our Little Mexican Cousin=
    =Our Little Norwegian Cousin=
    =Our Little Panama Cousin=
    =Our Little Persian Cousin=
    =Our Little Philippine Cousin=
    =Our Little Polish Cousin=
    =Our Little Porto Rican Cousin=
    =Our Little Portuguese Cousin=
    =Our Little Russian Cousin=
    =Our Little Scotch Cousin=
    =Our Little Servian Cousin=
    =Our Little Siamese Cousin=
    =Our Little Spanish Cousin=
    =Our Little Swedish Cousin=
    =Our Little Swiss Cousin=
    =Our Little Turkish Cousin=


    THE PAGE COMPANY
    53 Beacon Street,      Boston, Mass.

[Illustration: "LITTLE CHILDREN WERE PLAYING ABOUT THE STATUED FORM OF
THEIR BELOVED STORY-TELLER, HANS CHRISTIAN ANDERSEN"

(_see page 52_)]




OUR LITTLE DANISH COUSIN

    By
    Luna May Innes

    Illustrated by
    Elizabeth Otis

[Illustration]

    Boston
    THE PAGE COMPANY
    PUBLISHERS




    _Copyright, 1912_,
    BY L. C. PAGE & COMPANY
    (INCORPORATED)

    _All rights reserved_


    First Impression, June, 1912
    Second Impression, January, 1917




    TO MY LITTLE NEPHEW

    =Graeme Lorimer=

    ON HIS NINTH BIRTHDAY




Preface


DENMARK means "Land of dark woods." Although one of the smallest states
of Europe, the little kingdom of Denmark holds a very large place in
the world's history, having supplied rulers for many of the countries
of Europe.

The Dane loves his beautiful country, the land of Thorvaldsen and of
Hans Christian Andersen, of blue lakes, and "fairy-tale" castles.

Since the days of Leif and Biarne, Denmark and the United States have
been allied, and therefore I feel sure that the children of America
will be interested in the story of their little Danish Cousin.

I wish to express grateful acknowledgment to Hr. Georg Beck, Consul for
Denmark in Chicago; also to Mr. Haakon Arntz, and to Mr. and Mrs. Oscar
Andersen, for generous information given in regard to the manners and
customs of the Danish people.

                                                 LUNA MAY INNES.

    CHICAGO, _February, 1912_.




Contents


    CHAPTER                                     PAGE
          PREFACE                                vii
       I. THE DISTINGUISHED VISITOR                1
      II. COPENHAGEN                              22
     III. "HURRAH FOR KING FREDERIK!"             48
      IV. UP THE SOUND TO HAMLET'S CASTLE         59
       V. "FAIRY-TALE" CASTLES AND PALACES        73
      VI. THE LEGEND OF THE SACRED "DANNEBROG"    82
     VII. THE STORY OF THE DANISH "AHLHEDE"      100
    VIII. SKAGEN                                 117
      IX. A DANISH PEASANT WEDDING               134
       X. JUL-TIDE AT GRANDMOTHER INGEMANN'S     144




List of Illustrations


                                                              PAGE
    "LITTLE CHILDREN WERE PLAYING ABOUT THE STATUED FORM
          OF THEIR BELOVED STORY-TELLER, HANS CHRISTIAN
          ANDERSEN" (_see page 52_)                   _Frontispiece_
    "VALDEMAR BURST INTO THE ROOM"                             13
    "WHERE JOLLY-LOOKING WOMEN WITH QUAINT HEADDRESSES
          WERE SELLING THEIR WARES"                            35
    "THEY SPREAD THEM ON THE GRASS IN THE SHADOW OF THE
          GREAT BRICK TOWER"                                   90
    "IN THE CENTRE OF THE STUDIO STOOD THE UNFINISHED
          STATUE OF THE LITTLE CROWN PRINCE"                  119
    "'WELCOME! AND _GLAEDELIG JUL!_' CALLED OUT BOTH
          GRANDFATHER AND GRANDMOTHER INGEMANN"               145

[Illustration: Map of DENMARK]




Our Little Danish Cousin




CHAPTER I

THE DISTINGUISHED VISITOR


"HURTIG! _kaere Karen, mit lommetørklæde!_"

Fru Oberstinde Ingemann and her little flaxen-haired daughter, Karen,
were sitting at their embroidery work in the deep window-seat that
made one whole side of the cozy Ingemann living-room overlooking the
Botanical Gardens. Between stitches, Karen was watching the rain patter
on the little diamond window-panes, now and then pausing to take a
quick look at some favorite newly-blossomed flower in the brilliant,
long line of window-boxes which bordered the windows "like a long
bright ribbon," as Karen said.

The bell rang.

"_Hurtig! kaere Karen, mit lommetorklaede!_" sounds like something
terrible, but Fru Ingemann was only saying in Danish: "Quick, dear
Karen, my handkerchief!"

"Thank you, Karen," said the lady, as the fair child replaced the sheer
bit of linen in her mother's hand with a pretty courtesy, for Karen was
a well-bred little girl.

It was a morning of excitement for Fru Else Ingemann. Two important
letters had come to her from over the seas. One had come from Chicago
in far-away America, saying that her brother-in-law, the Hon. Oscar
Hoffman, was coming once more to pay a visit to dear old Denmark.
Mr. Hoffman was an important man in America. He was the president of
the "Danish-American National Park" in north Jutland, and it was in
his loyal Danish brain that the whole idea of the great Park had
originated. It had been his dream to save to the glory of Denmark,
for all time to come, a wonderful, wild tract of heather-covered
hills where, year by year, thousands of loyal Danish-Americans might
meet in the Fatherland, and celebrate America's Independence Day on
Danish soil. At last the Park was a reality, and he was coming to make
necessary arrangements.

He was bringing his son, Karl, with him, and, while they were to be in
Copenhagen, they would spend their time with the Ingemanns. He hoped
that the little cousins would become great friends. They would arrive
in Copenhagen on Saturday. To-day was Thursday.

The other exciting message came from Fru Ingemann's favorite brother,
Hr. Thorvald Svensen. It was postmarked Rome, Italy, and informed
her that at last he was coming back to live in his dear old home in
Copenhagen, and that he would arrive on that day.

Hr. Svensen had been living in Rome for eight long years, and in those
years of persistent, hard work he had finally realized his one great
ambition, and become Denmark's greatest sculptor--greatest, at least,
since the day of Denmark's beloved Thorvaldsen, whose namesake he was.

To Fru Ingemann there was no more welcome news in all the world. His
letter said that he longed to see her and the children once more.

Little Valdemar, who was the sculptor's godson, was wild with joy. "Let
me stay home from school to-day, mother!" he implored.

"No, no, Valdemar," firmly answered his mother, as she handed him his
school luncheon, a box of delicious _smörrebröd_.[1] When Valdemar's
mother said "No, no," he knew that further protests were useless. So
he kissed her and was off, calling back: "Good-bye, mother dear; keep
_Gudfar_[2] Thor until I come home from school, _please_!"

All that morning Fru Ingemann flew about in happy expectancy, making
more cozy the pretty little apartment. Karen could hear her mother, as
she worked, singing softly those familiar old lines from Baggesen, the
well-known Danish poet:

    "Ah, nowhere is the rose so red,
       Nowhere so small the thorn,
     Nowhere so soft the downy bed
       As those where we were born."

Above the patter of the rain came the sound of approaching carriage
wheels. Fru Ingemann paused.

"Quick, Karen,--the bell! It may be Uncle Thor!"

And so it proved! All the eight, long, lonesome years since she had
last seen this dear brother, years in which she had lost her husband,
were quickly forgotten in his great hearty embrace.

"_Min kaere Soster!_"

"_Min kaere Broder!_"

Their hearts were so full they could not find words.

Karen, tiptoeing, wanted to fling her tiny arms about her big,
yellow-bearded, Viking-like, Uncle Thor's neck, so he lifted the little
maid high in his strong arms and kissed her.

"Ah, Karen, _min lille skat_![3] How you have grown!" he said
affectionately. Soft yellow curls framed her pretty face, and two heavy
braids of the same glorious hair hung far down her back. "Why, you were
just a little, two-year-old baby when I went away to Rome, and now,
I've no doubt, you are dreaming of a boarding-school off in France or
Switzerland one of these days!"

But Karen only shook her little blond head and laughed, while Uncle
Thor's beauty-loving eye beamed on the dainty little damsel in white
embroidered frock, half-hose and slippers, as he settled himself
comfortably in the big arm-chair near the great, green-tiled stove,
whose top almost touched the living-room ceiling.

"Congratulations, dear brother," said Fru Ingemann. "Why didn't you
write us all about the great honor you have brought to the family?
I saw in this morning's 'Nationaltidende,' that you have just been
appointed Court Painter to His Majesty, the King! It is the greatest
honor that can come to a Danish artist. I am so proud of you!"

"It is true," he acknowledged, briefly, "but tell me, sister Else, how
are the boys, Aage and Valdemar?"

"Oh, Aage is now a big boy of sixteen, off doing his eight years of
compulsory military service in the army. Aage will grow up with a
straighter back and a better trained body because of his soldiering
days. He will be home for Christmas with us."

"And Valdemar?"

"Valdemar is only thirteen, but he is in his second year at the
Metropolitan School, one of the best State Latin Schools in all
Denmark. He will be back home at three o'clock. I could hardly get him
to consent to go to school at all, this morning, after he was told that
his Gudfar Thor was coming."

"And Karen studies with her private tutors, here, at home?"

"Yes, Thorvald, besides learning to be a good little housekeeper,
as well. But you must be both hungry and tired. It is nearly twelve
o'clock. Come, Karen, help me spread the table with something good for
_Frokost_,[4] for Uncle Thor."

A cloth of snowy damask was quickly spread with various viands and
meats; tongue, salad, salmon, anchovies, plates of butter, with trays
containing French (white) bread, and other trays full of thin slices
of rye bread, which is such a favorite with all Danes. Fru Ingemann
then placed a bottle of beer beside Hr. Svensen's plate, and brought
in the steaming hot tea, which she herself poured into the delicate
cups of that wonderful crystalline ware, the famous Royal Copenhagen
porcelain--a set doubly cherished by her as an heirloom in her family
for many generations.

Karen, who could herself make delicious tea, loved to gaze at the
fascinatingly delicate decoration of the cups, which looked, as she
said, "like frost on the window-pane;" but she never was allowed to
touch this precious set of old Royal Copenhagen, of which not one piece
had yet been broken.

"And _smörrebröd_, brother?" politely urged Fru Ingemann, for no good
Danish housewife would ever think of inviting any one to breakfast
without having _smörrebröd_ on the table.

"Thanks, sister Else," replied the hungry artist, who immediately set
about thickly spreading butter--famous Danish butter--over a slice
of rye bread, as did also Karen and her mother, after which each
proceeded to select the particular kind of fish or meat preferred, and,
arranging it upon the slice of buttered bread, ate it much as we would
a sandwich. Uncle Thor made an especially delicious one for Karen, who
had already become a great favorite with him.

_Frokost_ over, Fru Ingemann arose, and, bowing slightly to her
brother, said: "_Velbekomme!_"[5] And Hr. Svensen did the same.

"_Tak for Mad, Moder_,"[6] said Karen courtesying first to her mother
and then to her Uncle Thor, and kissing them both--a beautiful old
Danish custom.

Uncle Thor was a great lover of flowers. To-day there were beautiful
flowers on the table, in the windows, everywhere! In fact, the whole
Ingemann apartment seemed overwhelmed with the loveliness of them.
Besides the vases, there were little flower-pots galore, all decked in
brightly-colored paper, some containing blooming plants, others, little
growing trees.

"Ah, Karen, has there been a birthday here?" asked Uncle Thor, in mock
surprise. "Run out in the hall and see what came all the way from
Naples, Italy, to Frederiksberg-Alle, in Copenhagen, for a good little
girl with long pigtails."

Karen came running back with a tiny white kid box in her hand. Opening
it, she beheld the most beautiful set imaginable of pale pink corals.
She just couldn't wait to put the necklace on before hugging her dear
old Uncle Thor, who himself had to fasten the pretty chain around her
slender little neck for her.

"Yes, Uncle Thor, we had a splendid time, and mother gave us chocolate,
tea and cakes, and this is what all the boys and girls at my party
yesterday sang:

    "'London Bridge is broken down,
      Gold is won and bright renown,
        Shields resounding, war-horns sounding,
      Hild is shouting in the din,
        Arrows singing,
        Mailcoats ringing,
      Odin makes our Olaf win.'"

Karen had hardly finished singing her song describing the days of old,
when there had been a mighty encounter on London Bridge between the
Danes and King Olaf the Saint, ending in the burning of the bridge,
when there came a sudden great clatter and uproar on the stairs, with
the loud barking of a dog, and the sound of a boy's heavy boots, and
Valdemar burst into the room.

[Illustration: "VALDEMAR BURST INTO THE ROOM"]

"Oh, my dear, dear Gudfar Thor!" he exclaimed, throwing his arms tight
round his uncle's neck.

"Why, Valdemar, you are the very image of your father!" exclaimed Hr.
Svensen. "Don't you think so, sister Else?" he questioned, as he gazed
admiringly at the sturdy, big frame, rumpled flaxen hair, and the merry
twinkle in the honest blue Danish eyes of his godson.

"Oh, yes, Thorvald, Valdemar certainly is the image of his father. The
King thinks so, too," agreed Fru Ingemann.

"King Frederik? Why, how is that, sister? Has the king never forgotten
Valdemar?" questioned Hr. Svensen in surprise.

"Oh, Thorvald, you know the King's wonderful memory. It never fails
him. And you must remember the great friendship that always existed
between my dear husband and King Frederik, from the days when, as boys
together, they went through the Military College; and later both were
recruits in the same regiment, and had to do sentry duty, turn about,
outside his grandfather's palace. Only the other day, Valdemar came
bounding into the house, overjoyed, to tell me that he had just passed
their Majesties, King Frederik and Queen Lowisa, out walking on the
_Langelinie_,[7] entirely unattended, and that, when he doffed his
cap to the King, his Majesty immediately returned his salute, with a
friendly smile!"

"But, sister Else, how do you _know_ that King Frederik thinks Valdemar
the image of his father? I don't understand," persisted Hr. Svensen,
perplexed.

"We know!" Fru Ingemann spoke softly as she.

"Valdemar was only a little child when his father died," she
continued. "His father had always taught Valdemar to love the King, and
he does so with all his boyish little heart. An accident, a broken arm,
soon afterwards put the child in the Queen Lowisa Children's Hospital,
where, as you know, King Frederik makes a monthly visit to cheer the
little sufferers. The King loves children. They say that not one
little baby-face ever escapes him, and that he even notes each child's
improvement from time to time.

"Valdemar, in his little cot near the door, heard the nurses saying:
'The King comes to-day!'

"His little mind was all expectation. Finally, the King arrived.
Valdemar was the first little patient to see him enter, silk hat in his
hand as usual. Sick as he was, the boy drew himself quickly from out
of the covers, stood up in the middle of his bed, and saluted his King
with a low bow, so low that his forehead almost touched his pillow.
The King paused in surprise at Valdemar's cot and spoke:

"'My child, why do you do that? Why do you salute me?'

"'Because I like you! You are the King!'

"They say that the King looked into the child's face a moment, drew
his hand to his eyes, lost in thought, then, turning quickly to Prince
Christian, who accompanied him, exclaimed with a smile:

"'_Du ligner din Fader! Oh, vilde jeg onske at din Fader levede! Gid
Legligheden maa komme til at hjälpe denne opvagte Dreng, for min käre
gamle Ven Ingemann's Skyld!_'[8]

"Then, placing his hand on the child's golden locks, he spoke tenderly:
'Yes, little Valdemar Ingemann, I am the King. Always remember that
your father and I were great friends,' and he passed on.

"Valdemar has never forgotten that moment. He never will. You and the
King are the two great heroes of the world in his eyes."

"Where is he now? Come, Valdemar! Tell me all about what you like most
to read," called Uncle Thor.

"Oh, Uncle Thor, I love to read in the old Sagas and Chronicles all
about the mighty sea-fights of the Vikings, and about the glorious
battles of the Valdemars, in the books that Aage left me. They make me
want to be a soldier. Then I love to read everything about Linnæus, who
loved the trees and the flowers and the whole outdoors just as I do.
But, best of all, I'd rather become a famous sculptor like my Godfather
Thor! I'd like that better than anything else in all the world! See,
Uncle Thor, I've modelled some little things already. Here is one,--my
Great Dane, Frederik,--and here is a stork, and here is a little
Viking ship. They're not very good, but--"

"Oh, _min lille Billedhugger_!"[9] interrupted Hr. Svensen, with
feeling, as he took the little toy animals from Valdemar to examine
them. "This is not half bad work. But _what_ have you done them in, my
boy?"

"In pie-paste!" laughed his mother. "I have to hide the pie-paste when
I'm baking, to keep Valdemar from slipping it off to use for modelling!"

"Valdemar, you shall have some modelling clay. Thorvaldsen once made
the Lion of Lucerne in butter. I must tell you that story some day,"
said Hr. Svensen, as he patted his little nephew's head affectionately.

There was a sharp ring at the bell.

Karen flew to the door, then back to her mother, excitedly exclaiming:
"A box and a letter for you, mother!"

Fru Ingemann tore the note open and read: "Will be expelled if it
occurs again!" The words swam before her eyes.

"Oh, Valdemar, my son, come explain all this to me at once! It is from
your Latin teacher. Surely there is some mistake. It is not like my
boy!"

Meantime Karen had opened the box, and displayed a most laughable
clay caricature of Valdemar's Latin teacher, with the word "TEACHER"
scratched underneath in large letters. She burst out giggling. Even
Uncle Thor's look of mock horror soon gave way before the cleverly done
effigy, and he laughed. He had been a boy once himself, and it _was_
funny.

"Well, that's exactly the way teacher looks!" vehemently protested
Valdemar in self-justification. "Indeed he does. Ask Hendrik or any of
the boys. None of us like him one bit, and at recess to-day Hendrik
drew chalk cartoons of teacher all over the blackboard, and said: 'Oh,
Valdemar, you'd never dare do it in clay!'

"'Yes, I _would_ dare do it in clay!' I answered him, and then,
mother,--I did it. But I didn't mean Hr. Professor Christiansen to see
it. I'm glad school's over for all summer on Friday!"

Even Valdemar's mother had to laugh, as Uncle Thor took the offending
statuette in his hand to give it a closer examination, for it was as
irresistibly funny as it was clever.

"Brilliant, Valdemar!" he exclaimed. "Your work has merit. Work hard
enough, my boy, and you may become a great artist, some day. You have
the talent. Come over to my studio to-morrow morning. I'll help you a
little with your modelling, and then, after luncheon with me, I will
take you through the Thorvaldsen Museum. Would you like that? And, by
the way, I think there is something nice for you in my trunk. Now I am
due at the Royal Palace. I must go and pay my respects to the King. He
will be expecting me."

"Oh, Uncle Thor, I'll be there!" called out Valdemar. "Good-bye, Uncle
Thor, good-bye!"

FOOTNOTES:

[Footnote 1: The great Danish national dish.]

[Footnote 2: Godfather.]

[Footnote 3: "My little treasure."]

[Footnote 4: Breakfast]

[Footnote 5: "Well may it agree with you."]

[Footnote 6: "Thank you for the food, mother."]

[Footnote 7: Long Line.]

[Footnote 8: "The face of his father! Oh, that his father were still
living! May the opportunity some day be given me to benefit this bright
boy, for my dear old friend Ingemann's sake!"]

[Footnote 9: "My little sculptor."]




CHAPTER II

COPENHAGEN


SUMMER bursts suddenly in Copenhagen. First, winter, with its deep
snows, its fogs and frosts and thaws; then a few days of showers
and a few of sunshine, _Blinkeveir_[10] the Danes call this showery
weather; and then, all at once, the bare trees throw out their tender
green foliage and the spring flowers burst into life! The long cold
winter is over. Even then, there sometimes come dense sea-mists which
envelop Denmark's capital, and only vanish with the sun's warm rays. So
Copenhageners have a popular weather saying:

    "'Monday's weather till mid-day is the week's weather till Friday,
      Friday's weather is Sunday's weather,
      Saturday has its own weather."

Saturday's weather fortunately proved ideal, a rare June day.
Copenhagen's beautiful Public Gardens and Parks were all aglow with
fragrant, blossoming spring flowers. Valdemar's school was at last over.

"Now to the woods!" he cried in joy. "And, mother dear, can't we
keep Cousin Karl all summer with us up at our country place on the
_Strandvej_,[11] while Uncle Oscar has to be away in Jutland attending
to that Park of his? But I should like to be there with him when they
have their big American Fourth of July celebration, and see them raise
their great Star Spangled Banner over our beloved flag! Wouldn't you,
Karl? I've heard about the American 'Fourth,' with the Stars and
Stripes waving everywhere, and of the army manoeuvres and big times
they have over there in the States on that historic day! But Denmark's
never had anything like it before, has she, Uncle Thor?"

They were in Fru Ingemann's pretty dining-room having their twelve
o'clock little _frokost_ of tea and _smörrebröd_, this happy little
party of six, for the American relatives had arrived.

Early that morning, Valdemar and his Uncle Thor had hurried to the dock
to meet the steamer, "and, but for Uncle Oscar's waving handkerchief,
and his good memory for faces, we might have missed them entirely,"
explained Valdemar, who was delighted with this first acquaintance with
his new American cousin.

With the first warm spring day, half of Copenhagen whitewashes her
town house windows against the sun's hot rays, and prepares to migrate
farther north, to the famous _Strandvej_, where soft breezes from the
blue Sound play all day over the broad sandy beach, and rustle through
the leaves of the beech-trees in the Deer Park near by. Rich and poor
alike own their own villas, country houses or little cottages, as the
case may be, and these thickly dot the beautiful east Sound Shore all
the way from Copenhagen to Elsinore, for great is the Dane's love of
_at ligger på Landet_.[12]

Like all the rest, through wise and careful planning, Fru Ingemann had
her little country place on the beautiful east Shore, where each summer
Karen and Valdemar took long walks through the glorious beech-woods,
went swimming, boating and bathing, made their own flower-gardens and
dug in the ground to their hearts' content. By the end of each short,
happy summer, they were both as tanned and brown as the baskets of
beech-nuts they gathered and brought back with them for the winter.

"We will have great times, if only Cousin Karl can come up for the
summer with us!" begged little Karen.

"I'll think about it," was the only promise they could get out of Uncle
Oscar for the moment. "I'm sure Karl would like it, but I'm not ready
to decide anything just now."

"If I'm not mistaken, the first thing Karl wants is to see some of
the sights of Copenhagen," said Hr. Svensen, as they were leaving the
breakfast table. "Suppose we all go together and give him a bird's-eye
view of Copenhagen and the Harbor from the top of the Round Tower!
How's that, Karl?"

"Great! Can't we start right away?" said the little American, for Karl
was a typical little Chicago boy, eager-minded and anxious to take in
everything at once.

"And the Thorvaldsen Museum, Uncle Thor? Can't we go back there again
to-day?" urged Valdemar, for the wondrous beauty of Thorvaldsen's
masterpieces still filled all his thoughts. On the way home from the
Museum, the previous day, he had listened to fascinating stories told
him by his godfather, stories about the "Lion of Lucerne," and about
the little peasant boy who loved art, and worked hard, and finally
became one of the world's greatest sculptors. Valdemar couldn't forget
Thorvaldsen's lovely "Guardian Angel," or his wonderful figure of
"Christ," with its bowed head and arms outstretched in benediction, or
the heavenly beauty of his "Angel of the Baptism kneeling at Christ's
feet." Never, thought Valdemar, had he seen anything half so beautiful
in all his life! Then, there were mighty gods and heroes, and graceful
nymphs. "And only think," continued Valdemar, "when Thorvaldsen was
just a little boy eleven years old,--three years less than I am--he
so loved his drawing and modelling that his father, who was a poor
Icelandic ship-builder and carver of figureheads, placed him in school
at the Academy of Arts, where he won prize after prize, not stopping
until he had gained even the great gold medal, together with the
travelling scholarship which took him to Italy to study. There he
worked hard day by day, from early dawn till dark without stopping. No
wonder the great Museum is completely filled with masterpieces from his
hand!"

"Valdemar, my boy, you, too, shall enter as a student at the Academy
next fall, if your work during the summer continues to show the talent
and improvement that will justify my sending you. But that means you
must work hard. I leave next week for my summer studio up at Skagen,
but, until I go, you shall have a lesson each day, if you like, and
more lessons up there all summer long, if you will come, for there
is no little boy in all the world I would rather help than you, my
Valdemar."

"Oh, Uncle Thor!" cried Valdemar, throwing his arms around his
godfather's neck, wild with joy. "I will begin to-morrow. And do you
really mean that I am to study at the Academy?"

"Yes, my little artist," answered Hr. Svensen. "And now let us start
at once and see some of Copenhagen's sights."

"And will Fru Oberstinde not accompany us?" politely inquired Mr.
Hoffman, of his sister-in-law.

Danish wives and widows are given the same titles their husbands bear,
so that Fru Ingemann, who was the widow of a Colonel, or "Oberst," in
the King's army, was often addressed as "Oberstinde," or "Coloneless."

"Not to-day, thank you. Karen and I will wait for you at home," said
Fru Ingemann, smiling as she observed the big book in her child's
hands. "You see what Karen is reading, Hans Christian Andersen's
fascinating '_Billedbog unden Billeder_.'[13] Be sure to be back in
time for dinner," she called as the party set off.

"_God Dag_,"[14] said the tram conductor politely as they entered.
Karl smiled. Then he began to ask questions, for he had never
crossed the ocean before, and never before had he seen any city
like Copenhagen. Chicago certainly had its broad avenues, parks and
boulevards, great skyscrapers and fine buildings; but Chicago had never
dreamed of permitting its one great canal to run right up through the
city streets, among the office buildings and houses, with all its
shipping, launches and water-craft, as the Copenhagen canals all seemed
to do in the friendliest possible fashion.

"Copenhagen must look much more like Amsterdam than like Athens,
father. I can't see why it is called the 'Athens of the North.' I don't
see any Greek-looking buildings here," protested Karl.

"Yes," agreed Karl's father, who had once lived in Denmark long years
ago. "Copenhagen may look much more like Amsterdam, Karl; but, while
you will not see Greek buildings here, nevertheless the title of
'Athens' comes justly, not only because of Copenhagen's charming
position on the borders of the Sound at the entrance to the Baltic,
giving the city a great advantage commercially, and because of its
beautifully wooded environs, but particularly on account of its
splendid libraries, art galleries, museums and great university and
schools, which rank among the best to be found anywhere in Europe.
Before we reach the Round Tower we will doubtless get a view of some of
these."

"_Fa' vel_,"[15] said the tram conductor, bowing pleasantly to them as
they got off at their destination.

Karl laughed outright. "Dear me! In Chicago car conductors are given
prizes for politeness, but I must say, none of them have ever yet
reached the point of saying 'farewell' to you as you leave. I'm glad
they don't. Gee! We'd never get anywhere in Chicago if we stopped for
all that."

"Half of Copenhagen seems to be out on the streets to-day," remarked
Mr. Hoffman, who had not been back to Denmark's beautiful capital
for so long that he had forgotten what a large city it was. "Look, I
believe that must be the New Picture Gallery, isn't it?"

"You are right," replied Hr. Svensen. "Half the charm of Copenhagen
must be traced to her museums and rich art treasures. Shall we give the
boys a peep inside?"

"Oh, yes!" exclaimed both boys at once, for Karl had pleasant memories
of Saturday afternoons he had spent studying all the fine exhibits in
the Museum of the Art Institute of Chicago. They had soon climbed the
broad granite steps, and were walking through the long corridors and
halls filled with great paintings, each bearing the artist's name on
the frame.

"The New Picture Gallery affords a good opportunity for studying Danish
pictorial art, just as the New Glyptothek does for studying Danish
sculpture," said Hr. Svensen, as they were leaving.

"What canal is that?" asked Karl. "It certainly is a pretty one, with
that beautiful promenade and park along one side."

"Yes, that is Holmen's Canal, one of the finest in Copenhagen,"
answered Hr. Svensen. It was full of ships and other water-craft.
"And that marble building which looks like an Etruscan tomb is the
Thorvaldsen Museum, one of the principal attractions of Copenhagen. We
shall have to take another day for that. But, just to please Valdemar,
we will spend a moment inside the church where Thorvaldsen's 'Christ,'
the 'Angel of the Baptism' and 'The Twelve Apostles' are all standing
in the places for which they were designed."

"The Danes have accomplished much more in sculpture than in painting,
haven't they, Uncle Thor?" Valdemar asked.

"Yes, you are quite right, Valdemar. Denmark, as yet, has produced no
painter to compare with Thorvaldsen."

They paused a moment at the _New Raadhus-plads_, with its castellated
roof, and paved semicircle in front, and again, near by, at the New
City Hall.

"What an attractive part of Copenhagen this is," remarked Karl, as
he observed the many broad, fine, well-kept _Pladser_,[16] with
their electric cars gliding noiselessly back and forth with American
celerity. "Copenhagen seems to me a much cleaner, prettier city than
Chicago, father. Don't you think so? But where are its beggars? We've
not yet seen one."

Hr. Svensen was quick to answer that they were not likely to see one.
That Copenhagen, with a population of nearly five hundred thousand,
has a pauper element of less than three per cent. "For the Danes are
naturally a thrifty, industrious people, more than half of whom are
farmers, and many also go to sea in ships," explained Hr. Svensen.

[Illustration: "WHERE JOLLY-LOOKING WOMEN WITH QUAINT HEADDRESSES WERE
SELLING THEIR WARES"]

They took a tram down Stormgade over a bridge to the island of
Slotsholmen, with its famous Fruit and Flower Market, where
jolly-looking women with quaint headdresses were selling their wares;
then over another bridge into _Kongens Nytorv_, the King's New Market.

"Here we are in a different world from that which we just left," said
Hr. Svensen. They had reached a large Square, a great centre of life
and bustle, from which thirteen busy streets radiated. Through the
trees in the centre of this great open space the statue of a king was
seen, and red omnibuses crept slowly along on each side of the tram
line. Here they saw the Royal Theatre, the famous Tivoli Gardens, and
the beautiful old Palace of Charlottenburg, close to an inlet of the
sea, which reached right into the Square with all its shipping, so
that masts and sails and shops and buildings took on the same friendly
aspect that they have in Holland.

"But I don't see any 'skyscrapers,' Uncle Thor, like we have in
Chicago, sometimes twenty stories high! Where are they?" inquired the
little American.

"In a moment or so, Karl, I will show you two 'skyscrapers' that will
amuse you!" said Hr. Svensen. "But, look! here is a lively scene for us
first."

They were passing the Copenhagen fish-market, or _Gammelstrand_, as it
is called, where the fish are sold alive, after having been kept in
large perforated boxes in the canal.

"Now look, Karl! how's that for a skyscraper?"

They were looking at the tall tower of the _Bors_, or Exchange, one
hundred and fifty feet high, with its upper part formed by four great
dragons whose tails were so intertwined and twisted together, high
up in the air, that they gradually tapered to a point, like a spire
against the sky.

Then there was another tower which interested Karl. It was on the
Church of Our Redeemer. Circled by a long spiral stairway of three
hundred and ninety-seven steps of gleaming brass, which wound round and
round and up and up to the very top of the sharp cone, this tower gave
the persevering climber a good panoramic view over Copenhagen.

"But not so good a view as we can get from the top of the Round Tower,"
said Hr. Svensen. "Here we are now."

They were glad to quit the jostling crowds on the streets,--throngs
of busy shoppers, students in cap and gown, sightseers, and, to-day,
bright-coated soldiers at every turn. The soldiers were arriving in
Copenhagen by hundreds every day now, they were told, in order to
be ready, Monday morning, to welcome King Haakon of Norway, who was
expected to arrive by ship.

"Oh, Uncle Thor, will you or Uncle Oscar not bring us down to the city,
Monday, and let us see King Haakon drive past?" cried out both boys at
once.

"Yes, boys," said Mr. Hoffman, "I will be glad to bring you. I leave
for Jutland in the afternoon, Monday, and that will give me my last
chance to see a little more of Copenhagen."

At last they were in the Round Tower, and felt themselves slowly
ascending. Up and up, and round and round and round on an inclined
plane, they went--past curious niches in the wall, containing ancient
monuments covered with Runic inscriptions; past a door leading to the
university library, with its valuable collection of rare Icelandic
manuscripts; slowly, on and on, until finally they reached the very
top with its observatory, once the home of the great astronomer, Tycho
Brahe.

"Peter the Great once drove a coach and four to the top of this very
same tower," volunteered Karl. "I've read all about that at school in
Chicago. What a splendid view of the city we are having. It is all
spires, and red roofs and gables built stairway fashion, isn't it?"

"And how beautiful and sparkling the waters of the harbor look, all
alive with ships, great and small," said Valdemar. "It certainly is a
splendid seaport!"

Far away, the Baltic, blue as the Bay of Naples, shimmered in
the bright sunlight; and close at hand, at the various wharves,
merchantmen, with valuable cargoes from far countries, were loading and
unloading. It was a scene of busy life. The boys counted the flags of
many different nations. No wonder the city had been named Merchant's
Haven, or _Kjöbenhavn_.

"What a good view of the coast of Sweden we get up here," said
Valdemar. "And north of us lies Elsinore, the scene of Hamlet's
tragedy. And, Karl, I'm sure that, on a clearer day, we could see
Rugen, the German island, where, one day long ago, the Kaiser sat on
the top of the cliff four hundred feet high, and watched the famous
sea-fight between the Swedes and the Danes. But I don't like to talk
about Germany. I'm glad that Aage is a soldier. Some day he will help
us get Schleswig back again!" said patriotic little Valdemar. "And,
only think, some of the geography books have even dared to call the
North Sea the German Ocean! Kiel Harbor, now bristling with German
war-ships, once belonged to Denmark, and so did the whole Baltic!"

"Yes, and once the Danes were ruling half of England, Ireland, and
Scotland, and they even gained a foothold in Normandy," said little
Cousin Karl by way of consolation.

"And the Germans once stood in terror of our great Vikings, who lorded
it over the seas in every direction!" added Valdemar, with growing
enthusiasm. "Their graves may be seen on both sides of the North Sea
to-day. And wasn't it here, Uncle Thor, when an unusually severe winter
had bridged the Baltic, that the Swedish king, Karl Gustav, led his
army, horse, foot and guns, over the frozen seas where no one had dared
to cross before, and finally took Copenhagen? But Denmark and Sweden
are at peace now."

"I'm glad that they are," replied Karl, "and that Norway and Denmark
are, too, or we might not see King Haakon next Monday!"

"Come!" said Uncle Thor. "Let us hurry home now, before we are late to
dinner. It is a wonderful old tower, having survived both fires and
bombardments. Once Copenhagen was fortified with a wall and a moat, for
Denmark's capital has passed through many vicissitudes, but in these
peaceful days they both have been turned into parks for the people."

Dinner had been awaiting the hungry sightseers for some time when they
reached home.

When they had all gathered about the dinner table, it was plain that
there was some great secret in the air. Fru Ingemann's face wore a
bright smile, in spite of the late dinner, and little Karen held
herself with an air of supreme importance, her cheeks bright, and her
blue eyes dancing with suppressed excitement.

"Great news, Brother Thorvald!" began Fru Ingemann, handing him a great
white envelope bearing the arms of His Majesty, King Frederik. "When
Karen and I were quietly studying the recipe book, and thinking of
the dinner far more than of kings, the bell rang sharply, and, lo and
behold! there stood the King's royal _Jaeger_[17]--in green uniform,
three-cornered hat and all--inquiring for you, brother!

"'His Majesty, the King, sends this message to Hr. Professor Svensen,'
he said with a gracious bow, and, again bowing low, departed. Karen
and I, as you can well imagine, have been guessing everything possible
and impossible ever since, and given up in despair, waiting for you to
explain it all to us yourself, Thorvald."

By this time, Valdemar's and Karen's eyes were bulging wild with
curiosity, and even Mr. Hoffman's face showed extreme interest. What
could it be?

"I am summoned to the Royal Palace Tuesday at eleven o'clock,"
explained Hr. Svensen, "to begin immediate work upon a statue of His
Royal Highness, the Crown Prince Olaf of Norway, who has graciously
consented to give me a few sittings during his short visit in Denmark."

When Uncle Thor had finished reading, he passed the great white
envelope, headed "Royal Palace," with its interesting contents, over to
his sister and the children. Never before had the King's _Jaeger_ come
to Fru Ingemann's little apartment out on Frederiksberg-Alle!

Valdemar was the first to speak.

"Oh, Uncle Thor! I wonder if dear little Prince Olaf will pose with his
beautiful big dog! He is never without him, you know. And oh, _dear_!
Uncle Thor, can't you take me along with you to mix your clay--keep it
damp for you, and just do lots of things you'd like done? I want to go
with you so much, Uncle Thor, to watch you work! I know I could help
you ever so much, if _only_ you would just take me!" urged the little
embryo sculptor of the now great one.

"My dear little Valdemar," said Uncle Thor with much tenderness in his
voice, "you are very welcome to go with me to the Royal Palace 'to
watch me work.' But, first, I want to watch _you_ work. Watching me
will not do you much good, my little artist, until _you_ have done more
work, yourself! This summons may delay my leaving for my summer studio,
up at Skagen, until the end of the week, and I am willing to give half
of every day, until I go, to teaching you. Now try to have some work
ready to show me by to-morrow. I will bring you more modelling clay
when you have used up what you have here. In fact, I will bring you
some of my own tools, and some casts for you to use as studies. Perhaps
I can fit up a real little studio right here in your own home for you.
I want to see what talent you have, Valdemar."

"Oh, brother, how very good of you!" exclaimed Fru Ingemann. "Valdemar
must work very hard. He has talent, I feel sure."

They had all finished their soup, a kind of very sweet gruel with
vegetables, and a dish of ham was then placed before Fru Ingemann, who
carved it, and passed around the slices, beginning with her nearest
guest. Fish, preserves, and stewed fruits were served with it. Then
followed _Rod-grod_, a kind of jelly to which the juice of different
fruits had been added, tea and coffee, and the little dinner ended
with the same ceremony as breakfast. Karl tried to suppress a smile
as Valdemar and little Karen courtesied to their mother and uncles,
as they said politely: "Thank you for the food," and went around and
kissed them.

"My son," said Karl's father, reprovingly, "I like these beautiful old
Danish customs. I only wish you and all our little American boys and
girls had more of this feeling of gratitude."

"Come, Karl," called Valdemar, "and see my beautiful Della Robbia
'Singing Boys,' that Uncle Thor brought to me all the way from Italy!"

As the boys disappeared, the two men withdrew to the smoking-room for
a chat over their cigars, while Fru Ingemann busied herself assembling
all the "birthday flowers" into the front window overlooking the
avenue, according to an old-time custom in Copenhagen. Then she tucked
little Karen snugly in bed with a great pillow propped up against her
feet to keep the drafts off, for the early June day had grown suddenly
cooler towards night.

FOOTNOTES:

[Footnote 10: Blinking weather.]

[Footnote 11: Sea-side.]

[Footnote 12: Lingering in the country.]

[Footnote 13: "Picture Book without Pictures."]

[Footnote 14: Good day.]

[Footnote 15: Farewell.]

[Footnote 16: Squares.]

[Footnote 17: Hunter, or Messenger.]




CHAPTER III

"HURRAH FOR KING FREDERIK!"


"VALDEMAR, tell me! What is a real king like?" exclaimed Karl, as both
boys sprang quickly out of bed bright and early Monday morning. "Is
a real king something like a President, only he's all gorgeous with
flashing decorations, and a sword and helmet,--like the pictures of
Napoleon and the German Emperor?"

"Karl, you must have been dreaming about kings! I can't tell you
whether a king is like a President or not, for I've never seen a
President," said Valdemar. "But I am sure of one thing, and that is
that our King isn't one bit like the German Emperor! King Frederik just
looks like the very best king Denmark ever had, and that is what he
really is!"

"Oh, excuse me, Valdemar. I forgot that you don't love the Germans. But
does King Frederik come riding a great prancing charger with an arched
neck and--"

"You'll soon enough see for yourself how the King looks, Karl. Oh,
there's Uncle Thor! Uncle Thor, how long before we can start?" cried
Valdemar, who was himself almost as excited over the prospect of seeing
two great kings at once, as was Karl. Valdemar had never seen King
Haakon of Norway, son of his own dear King, and, although Karl, who was
nearly twelve years old, had seen two Presidents, and gone once with
his father to the White House in Washington, he had never seen a real
live king in all his short life.

"Oh, father dear!" he cried, "when _can_ we start? There! I think I
heard a bugle! Oh, do let's go!"

"We will start before very long, Karl, but not until you boys have had
your tea and bread. And, if I'm not mistaken, I heard Valdemar's uncle
say that he was to have a good lesson in drawing this morning. King
Haakon's ship does not arrive in Copenhagen harbor before almost noon,
so there will be plenty of time."

"Yes, I do want my lesson!" said Valdemar, as they finished their cups
of hot tea. "I'm ready, Uncle Thor," he called out, as he saw his uncle
passing.

Valdemar was in a very happy frame of mind this fine June morning, for
his uncle had praised his work of the day before. Valdemar had modelled
a half life-sized figure of his Great Dane, Frederik, and, to his great
surprise, Uncle Thor had not only said that it was good, but had told
his mother that it undeniably showed evidence of real talent. Nothing
could please Valdemar more.

Saturday's sightseeing had given them all a taste for more.
Fortunately, Karl had brought his bicycle with him from Chicago, and
so the two boys followed on their wheels, while Fru Ingemann took her
brother, Mr. Hoffman, and little Karen all in a carriage, and drove
the length of the beautiful Shore Road, called the _Langelinie_, or
Long Line,--Copenhagen's fashionable drive, that stretches for miles
along the sea. The place was gay with Sunday crowds,--walking, riding,
wheeling, driving,--all out enjoying the warm June sunshine, as well as
the bracing sea-breeze.

When they reached the quaint old Citadel, they left the carriage and
strolled about the earthworks, viewing the monument made from the
guns of the wrecked _Dannebrog_, a ship fitly named after the Danish
flag. Promenaders thronged the Shore Road at this point, gazing at the
shipping of all nations which here covered the Sound, and off into the
dim distance, at the shores of Sweden.

Karl thought that his Aunt Else must have hosts of little friends, for
all the small boys bowed, and the little girls courtesied so prettily,
as she passed. But Fru Ingemann explained to him that it was only a
custom of all well-bred Danish children to bow and courtesy to their
elders, and then she told him how, every spring at _Paaske_, or Easter,
as we call it, this beautiful Shore Road is thronged all day long with
gay crowds all decked out in their _Paaske_ finery, as it is again
later at _Store Bededag_, or Great Praying Day, on the fourth Friday
after Easter.

From here they drove out to the old Castle of Rosenborg, with its
fine garden where little children were playing about the statued-form
of their beloved story-teller, Hans Christian Andersen; and then
straight home again, passing, on their way, the royal residential
quarter, Amalienborg, which forms a great open Square, adorned with
the beautiful Marble Church, and, in the centre of the Square, with a
statue of King Frederik V.

"Now we're off!" said Uncle Thor, as Valdemar finished a very good
drawing lesson, for Karl and his father, and Karen and her mother were
already waiting.

At first the electric tram simply flew. But, as they approached the
down-town section of the city, its way was often blocked by the dense
crowds, who, like themselves, were coming to witness the arrival of
Copenhagen's honored royal guest, His Majesty, King Haakon of Norway.

"Norroway-over-the-Foam, as it was once called," laughed Fru Ingemann,
"is a land of beauty which we must all visit some day. It is so many,
many times the size of our little Denmark that it makes us feel, by
comparison at least, a very small country indeed."

"But Denmark occupies more space on the map than either Belgium or
Holland," said Valdemar.

"And Denmark is nearly twice the size of Massachusetts," added Karl.
"But, oh! Just do look at the terrible crowds!--and right here is where
we get off! Father says 'Come!'"

All at once they were thrust into the vast crowd. All Copenhagen seemed
suddenly to have poured by thousands forth into the streets, and the
flags of Norway and Denmark floated everywhere side by side.

"If only we can make the opposite side of the street!" said Uncle Thor,
nervously looking about him in every direction, "we shall be safe, for
right up there, on the second floor of that building, is my friend's
office, from the window of which we are to view the royal procession.
Ah! we're safe now!"

No sooner had they taken their positions in the large open window, than
they heard, in the distance, a cannon's loud report. It was followed by
a salute of guns and loud cheering.

"There!" said both boys at once. "That means that King Haakon has
landed, and is now on his way here!"

The cheering sounded nearer and nearer, and the cannon continued to
boom.

"Forty guns!" said Valdemar, who had been counting. "Forty guns is
Denmark's royal salute. Karen dear, can you see?"

"Yes, thank you, brother," said the child, whose feet were fairly
dancing with so much excitement. "But look! They are clearing the
street! The people are being made to keep back on the sidewalks.
Listen! That is our glorious old National Hymn that the splendid Royal
Guards are now playing. The King must be near! Listen, Karl! Oh, isn't
it all thrilling!"

Nearer and nearer sounded the familiar strains.

"It _is_ splendid, Karen," conceded Karl, "but I'd like the Star
Spangled Banner just as well, and, besides, I guess a king's no
bigger'n a President! Oh, look!" But it was only an advance guard of
mounted police.

"I'm glad, mother, that our window has the largest flag in town flying
from it," said Valdemar. "I just _do_ hope the King will look up here
and see it! Listen! Now the people are beginning to cheer right down
here under our very window! And the men are doffing their hats!"

"Hurrah! Hurrah! Hurrah!" cheered the loyal thousands, as the
scarlet-coated King's Guard came in view.

"Oh!" gasped Karen, with a long-drawn breath of delight. "Oh! isn't it
glorious! Hear the bugle! And here come the mounted Hussars with their
little red capes fastened on one shoulder, and swords flashing! How
splendidly they ride!"

"Mother, I'm going to wave my own flag when the King's carriage
passes!" cried patriotic little Valdemar. "If King Frederik will only
look up! Don't you hope he will, Karl? Oh! there's his carriage now!
Yes, he sees my flag waving! He's looking! I'm going to cheer! Hurrah
for King Frederik!"

The King heard and raised his head. His eyes fell directly upon
Valdemar's bright face, as had been the case that long ago day, in the
Children's Hospital. King Frederik smiled, bowed, and gave the lad a
military salute of recognition. King Haakon was seated beside King
Frederik, but Valdemar did not see him. In the following carriage were
the two queens, Queen Maud of Norway, and their own beloved Danish
Queen Lowisa, with little Crown Prince Olaf, of Norway, seated between
them; but Valdemar saw only King Frederik.

"Mother! He _knew_ me!" cried Valdemar, as the brilliant procession
passed slowly out of sight, and the music, whose strains came faintly
back to them, had changed from Denmark's "Kong Christian" to the
Norwegian National Hymn in honor of King Haakon.




CHAPTER IV

UP THE SOUND TO HAMLET'S CASTLE


"MOTHER dear, how fine and cool the sea-breeze feels!" exclaimed
Valdemar, as the little Sound steamer puffed along over the bright
Baltic waves, past the big merchant-ships on the blue Sound, making
many stops on its way up towards historic old Elsinore, the spot made
famous by Shakespeare.

Uncle Oscar had departed three days before, going directly to the
Jutland Park, to begin preparations for the entertaining of the
thousands of loyal Danish-American visitors, expected to arrive in time
for the Fourth celebration, and Fru Ingemann had given him her promise
to meet him there, with the three children, for that great event.

For it had not taken Fru Ingemann long to decide that Uncle Oscar's
plan for the summer was best. Summer days are long, but few, in
Denmark,--the winters cold and stormy,--and Karen and Valdemar needed
the trip as much as did Karl, she told herself. So the little party
of four were already on their way north, to see for themselves all
the wonders and beauties of Jutland, of which Karl's father had been
telling them.

Once Fru Ingemann had decided, the days fairly flew. Valdemar wanted to
start at once. But there was all the packing to be done--of things to
be left, and things to be taken--and the flat to be closed for at least
several months.

Karen, who had never before been farther from home than their own
little villa up on the _Strandvej_, was overjoyed and danced busily
about, saving her mother steps in a thousand different ways; while
Valdemar and Karl surprised Fru Ingemann by getting out ladders,
buckets and brushes, and nicely whitewashing all the flat windows,
which was really being very useful indeed.

"Aunt Else, why is our steamer so awfully crowded with people? Are the
Sound boats always like this?" asked Karl, who could hardly turn his
chair around without knocking into some one.

"Yes, Karl, it's like this every year at 'Deer-Park-time.' The huge
crowds are as eager as ourselves to leave Copenhagen with the first
warm day and flee to _Skoven_,[18] for we Danes love our beautiful
woods. With the first bursting of the beech-buds, everybody asks
everybody else: 'Have you been in the woods yet?' And then by
thousands--young and old--they flock to our beloved beech-woods. Those
who cannot find room on the boats take the first train, or carriage,
or cycle, or car, or even foot it--any way at all in order to reach
the Deer Park, for that is where most of them go. After we make a stop
there, we shall have plenty of room on our boat, Karl. Look! We are
passing Charlottenlund, the Crown Prince's palace. You can see it up
among those fine old trees."

"Then, Aunt Else," asked Karl, "isn't 'Deer-Park-time' something like
our American 'Indian Summer,' only that it comes in the spring? It's
your finest part of spring, and our best part of fall, when every one
wants to live out of doors. Isn't that it?"

"That's just right, Karl," laughed Fru Ingemann. "And a little Danish
boy would feel almost as badly not to be taken to the beech-woods
when 'Deer-Park-time' comes, as would a little English boy if he got
no plum pudding on Christmas day, or a little Scotch boy without his
currant bun on New Year's Day, or a nice little American boy like
you, Karl, if he couldn't have any firecrackers for his Fourth of July
celebration. But here we are stopping at the Deer Park now. Half the
people are getting off."

Valdemar's eyes looked far beyond the disembarking crowds landing at
the pier. He saw only the dark pine trees in the distance, straight and
tall, suggesting to his imaginative mind giant masts for Viking ships.
Many a fine day had he spent tramping through those tree-shaded walks
with his mother, while she told him wonderful stories about Denmark's
great heroes of old.

"In America, we like to go to the woods, too," said Karl; "but not just
to walk and walk all day. We like to play ball, or climb the trees for
nuts, or keep doing something all the time. Do you ever do anything but
just walk, in your woods?"

"Sometimes, on a warm summer's evening in the woods, we sing some
beautiful old hymn, like Grundtwig's:

    "'For Danes have their home where the fair beeches grow,
      By shores where forget-me-nots cluster,
      And fairest to us, by cradle and grave,
      The blossoming field by the swift-flowing wave.'

There are no people in all the world, Karl, who have the same simple
love for their trees, as do the Danes," explained his Aunt Else.

"There, Karl, we are starting again," said Valdemar.

The beautiful Deer Park, with its masses and pyramids of green foliage,
followed the Sound-Shore for five miles before the steamer had left it
behind. The boat kept close to the shore, stopping frequently at the
little, red-roofed settlements, inviting little villas and sea-bathing
resorts, to let off more passengers, for everybody in Copenhagen who
can, must lie on the _Strandvej_ for at least a part of every summer,
enjoying the out-of-doors amusements, the bathing, the woods, sea,
sky and sunshine. Nestling among the trees of the _Strandvej_, for
miles, were little white, yellow, and green villas, among them Fru
Ingemann's,--at the sight of which Karen, who always felt a little sick
on the water, brightened, and exclaimed:

"There, Karl, is ours! You must come back and spend another summer with
us up there. We do have the best times, don't we, Valdemar?"

The afternoon was singularly fine. Hundreds of ships were gliding
silently past them in one continuous procession.

"Why," exclaimed Karl, "there must be the flags of every nation
on the globe. I've counted the Russian, German, French, English,
Swedish, Norwegian, Italian, Greek, Spanish and Portuguese flags, and,
look!--there is a steamer with our dear old United States flag! How
narrow the sound is growing, Aunt Else. The mountains of Sweden look
nearer and nearer. I believe that, if I yelled loud enough, the people
over there could easily hear me."

"Yes, Karl, we must be nearing Helsingör, for the Sound certainly
is narrowing rapidly. It is less than two miles wide at that point.
It hardly seems three hours since we left Copenhagen," remarked Fru
Ingemann.

"Oh, mother, look! Isn't that old Kronborg now?" exclaimed Valdemar.
"That is surely Hamlet's Castle, mother! Helsingör is where we land!"

"Yes, it is grim old Kronborg Castle, Valdemar. Many a tale its old
gray walls could tell of terrible fighting, royal merrymaking, and of
sadness. Karen and you, boys, shall go all through it when we land.
For three hundred years Kronborg was the key to the Sound, keeping a
sentry-like guard over the gate between the Baltic and the North Sea.
For before the Kiel Canal was cut, as many as twenty thousand ships
every year passed through this narrow strait, bound for Russian and
Swedish ports; and Denmark grew rich from the Sound dues she collected.
Now, the gates are open to the ships of all countries, and, when
foreign sovereigns or men-of-war glide through this narrow silvery
streak dividing Sweden and Denmark, old Kronborg's cannon give a
friendly salute. But, come, we are landing now."

It was but a few minutes' walk up to the frowning old fortress on the
promontory, with its many lofty, gray stone towers rising from the
castellated roof. Karl was seeing for the first time in all his life a
real "fairy-tale" castle, surrounded by a broad moat and ramparts.

First they were shown the apartments occupied by the royal family
when, at rare times, they visit Kronborg. Passing a little chapel,
with its carved choir-stalls and pulpit, they found themselves, after
a fatiguing ascent, out upon the flat roof of a great square tower,
from which they gazed in admiration in all directions, for the day was
remarkably clear and bright.

Far and near, over land and sea, the view was magnificent. To the east
rose the mountainous Swedish coast, and, to the north, the gleaming
blue waters of the Sound expanded into the equally blue Kattegat. All
was still, like noon. Nothing seemed to move but the multitude of white
sails silently passing and repassing through the narrow silvery strait
below.

"Mother dear, do you think I shall ever be able to paint anything so
beautiful as this? Uncle Thor could do it justice, mother; but I--"

"Yes, dear, if you work hard enough," was his mother's only answer, as
she drew his coat collar closer about his neck, for a chill wind had
risen.

"The Swedish coast is so near, mother, that I can see the windows of
the houses," said Karen. "The coast doesn't look dangerous, does it,
mother; but Valdemar says the guard told him he had seen as many as six
shipwrecks here in one night."

"Yes, child, there are often bad storms on this coast; for the Kattegat
is very rough and dangerous at times. Now we must go."

"But Aunt Else, I want to see the famous platform where the ghost of
Hamlet's father walked that night," protested Karl, as the little party
started down.

"Why, my dear boy, the ghost of Hamlet's father is believed to have
paraded this very platform, right here where we are standing," laughed
his aunt, as she put her arm about little Karen, who shuddered at the
thought.

"Don't you know the familiar verse, Karl?

    "'And I knew that where I was standing,
        In old days long gone by,
      Hamlet had heard at midnight
        The ominous spectre cry.'

"This is, indeed, the far-famed castle of Elsinore, of glorious
Shakespeare's fancy, Karl. You must, of course, have read about it in
your school in Chicago," said Fru Ingemann, with a twinkle in her eye.
"Through the magic of Shakespeare's great genius this out-of-the-way
corner of our beloved little Denmark has become forever famous the
whole world over. But come quickly, all of you; we have much yet to see
this afternoon, before we take our steamer for Aarhus."

"Wasn't it here in this fortress, too, that beautiful Queen Caroline
Matilda was imprisoned until her brother, George III, sent her to
Germany, where she soon died?" asked Valdemar, as they hurried down.

"And, oh, Aunt Else, isn't it right here in this castle that Holger
Danske stays?" demanded Karl.

"Yes, Valdemar, Queen Caroline Matilda was a prisoner here; and Karl,
no one can ever see Holger Danske, although it is believed that he is
alive somewhere down in the underground vaults of this fortress, and
that, whenever Denmark needs him, he will arise and come to her aid.
All little Danish boys know him. Valdemar, you tell Karl the story,"
said Fru Ingemann, as the little party hurried on.

"Well, Karl, Holger Danske is the great national hero of Danish
tradition, the founder of the Danish nation, in fact," began Valdemar,
who was thoroughly familiar with his country's history and traditions.
"Holger Danske's cradle was a warrior's shield, so the story goes, and
he sits down in the deep dark dungeon of this fortress, all alone, clad
in iron and steel, his head forever resting on his strong arms, bending
over a marble table to which his great long beard has grown fast.
There he forever slumbers and dreams that he sees and knows everything
that is happening above in his beloved Denmark. Whenever his country
is in peril, or stands in need of his services, he will appear. But,
every Christmas night, one of God's angels visits him in his dungeon,
and assures him that all his dreams are true, and that Denmark is
threatened with no extraordinary danger, and that he may sleep on
again."

As they reached the Castle grounds, the guide pointed out the old
moat, where Ophelia drowned herself, and the spring near by that bears
her name. Then he took them to the grave of the melancholy Dane, in a
beautiful shaded spot, marked by a moss-grown cairn of stones, and a
granite shaft bearing the inscription:

    +--------------------+
    |                    |
    |  "HAMLET'S GRAV."  |
    |                    |
    +--------------------+

FOOTNOTE:

[Footnote 18: The woods.]




CHAPTER V

"FAIRY-TALE" CASTLES AND PALACES


"'FREDENSBORG' means 'Castle of Peace.' It is an idyllic spot near
here, famous the whole world over as the happy holiday gathering-place,
every summer, of half the present crowned heads, majesties, and royal
highnesses of Europe," said Fru Ingemann. "Let us take this waiting
carriage now for a quick drive over there and back again in time
for our steamer this afternoon to Aarhus. All this part of Eastern
Zealand is so rich in romantic, fairy-tale castles and palaces, that
I only wish we had time enough to see them all. But Fredensborg's
hospitable roof has sheltered all the royal children, grandchildren,
and great-grandchildren of good old King Christian IX, of Denmark,
who was affectionately called 'The Grandfather of Europe.' Only think
of a family reunion including King Frederik VIII and Queen Lowisa, of
Denmark; their son, King Haakon, of Norway; former Queen Alexandra, of
England, and her sister, the Dowager Empress Dagmar, of Russia, who
were both Danish princesses; King George and Queen Mary, of England;
King George, of Greece; and the Czar of all the Russias,--all meeting,
every summer, in a quiet little family reunion in our obscure little
Denmark at Fredensborg Palace!"

"But, Aunt Else, you left out the German Emperor!" observed Karl, who
persisted in always mentioning the Germans.

"The German Emperor never comes to these royal gatherings, Karl. He
is the only king who is not welcomed on Danish soil," explained Fru
Ingemann, gently. "But here we are now at the palace."

They approached the palace through an avenue of magnificent old
lindens, through whose interlaced branches they caught glimpses of the
blue sky and of the still bluer Lake Esrom, near by. Then, entering a
very stony courtyard, the carriage stopped before a few steps, guarded
by two stone lions.

Soon they were walking through the apartments of the Queen, on the
right, and of those of the King, on the left. From the King's plain
working room, on the floor above, they looked out over the beautiful
Marble Garden, so called from the elaborate statuary romantically
placed among the old beech-trees, under whose deep shadows King Edward
and Queen Alexandra, of England, did their courting. Nor was theirs the
only royal love tale those mighty old trees could tell.

In one room still stood the historic old Settee of the Czar, so called
because the present Czar's father, who loved children, used to sit
there and play for hours with his own royal children, whom he loved so
well.

Nothing interested them all more than the inscriptions--tender and
pathetic--which they found on several of the historic old windows.
Karl could only read a few, which happened to be in English, such as
"Alexandra, September, 1868," and another, "Willie," which the King of
Greece had written. But, when it came to a French inscription: "_Que
Dieu veille sur la Famille Royale et la protège._ Alexandra, 1867,"
Karl had to call upon Valdemar to translate it for him, as well, of
course, as all the Danish ones.

"'May God watch over the royal family and protect it,' is the
translation of the French one, Karl, by Queen Alexandra; and Olga,
Queen of Greece, has written in Danish here on this window: '_Danmark,
Danmark, elskede Hjem_,' which means: 'Denmark, Denmark, beloved home,'
and here is a touching one by the late Czar: '_Farvel kjaere gamle
Fredensborg_,' 'Farewell, dear old Fredensborg.'"

"And, mother," said Karen, "here is: 'Farewell, my beloved Fredensborg.
Alexandra, September, 1868;' and 'Christian-Louise, 1864,' and
'Valdemar-Marie, 1885.'"

They drove away through the royal grounds, which reached down to the
shores of beautiful Esrom Lake, glimmering like a sapphire in the
setting sun's soft light, and were soon back once more at Helsingör.

"Aunt Else," said Karl, "Fredensborg Castle looked exactly like the
pictures of castles in the books of fairy tales."

"If that is what you like, Karl, then some day you must surely see
Frederiksborg Palace, in the lovely forest region north of Copenhagen.
It stands on an island in a lake, and is all spires, turrets and
battlements, and certainly looks like a real fairy-tale castle," said
Fru Ingemann. "Some of its venerable beeches are five hundred years
old. But here is the little inn where we must have something nice and
warm to eat before we take our steamer, in just a few minutes, for we
will be sailing all night. We have barely time, if we hurry."

After finishing their little dinner of hot cinnamon-flavored soup,
broiled fish, rye bread, preserves and _röd-gröd_, all of which tasted
so good after their drive back through the woods, they boarded the
little steamer which was to take them on their all-night trip over the
Kattegat to Aarhus, on the east coast of the peninsula of Jutland, or
the Continent, as the Danes call it.

"Aunt Else, on one of those windows at Fredensborg, was the
inscription: 'Valdemar-Marie, 1885.' Won't you tell me all about the
Valdemars? They were Denmark's greatest kings, weren't they?" urged
Karl.

"Yes, but Valdemar will be glad to tell you all about them and about
all the other kings of Denmark, too, Karl; but wait--here comes Fróken
Johanne Nielsen, with her little nephews, Tykke and Hans, to talk to
us. Fróken Nielsen is a great traveller. Children, don't you remember
meeting them one summer up on the Strandvej?"

Karen courtesied prettily, while the boys arose, bowed, and politely
gave their seats to the Nielsens. Then Fru Ingemann listened while
Fróken Johanne, who only remained a few minutes, told them of the
famous sights of Stevns Klint, or cliff, on Zealand's eastern coast,
where they had just been; and of the still more wonderful scenery
on the romantic little island of Möen, in the Baltic, where the
dazzling white limestone cliffs of Lille and the Store Klint adorn the
sea-coast, and where the summer-time sunset comes after nine o'clock,
and the clear northern light lasts until morning.

"And don't forget about Faxö, Aunt Johanne, or Svendborg. Faxö was the
best of all," put in little Tykke, as he delved deep down into his
pockets and brought forth some pieces of fine coral.

"Yes, Faxö is an ancient coral crag jutting out into the Baltic,"
explained Fróken Johanne. "It is full of beautiful and rare fossils,
and from Svendborg, on Fyen Island, we had such a beautiful view for
miles and miles. From one high place the children could see alternate
land and water five times, as well as the coasts of Sweden and Germany.
The islands seemed like stepping-stones in the Baltic. But come,
children, say good-bye; we must go."

While they had been talking the setting sun had thrown a yellow glory
over the waters in front of Elsinore, which was now fading slowly
away. The forests about the old castle on the promontory became dark,
blurred masses, and the white sails below were mere moving shadows. The
children could no longer see even the many fine specimens of fossils
and coral which Hans and Tykke had generously divided with them.

The little steamer advanced upon the rolling _Kattegat_, with great
flocks of white-winged sea-gulls following in its wake. Fru Ingemann
noticed that Karen, who never could stand the churning motion of a
boat, was turning perceptibly pale, and that a vague, uncertain feeling
seemed to be creeping over even Valdemar and Karl, so she took her
sleepy little brood below and soon had them all tucked snugly into bed
for the night.




CHAPTER VI

THE LEGEND OF THE SACRED "DANNEBROG"


"IT'S a letter from Uncle Oscar, mother! I just know it is!" cried
Valdemar, as Fru Ingemann opened and commenced reading aloud the only
letter found awaiting them the next day, upon their arrival in the
ancient town of Aarhus.

"And best of all," concluded the letter, "I have a great surprise in
store for you all when you reach the Park next week. Karl will be
especially delighted."

"Oh, Aunt Else, what can it be? How I wish I knew what father means!"
exclaimed Karl, dancing about the room in anticipation of so soon
seeing his father again.

"Let us make plans quickly," said Fru Ingemann. "I am wondering how we
shall ever crowd into one short week all the fine trips and excursions
we shall want to take before we leave here, for Fru Petersen tells
me that the surrounding country is far more interesting than Aarhus
itself."

"Yes, mother, the Riis Skov and the Marselisborg Skov, on the outskirts
of Aarhus, are at their very best now for picnicking," added Valdemar,
who always loved the woods. "A farmer passed us on our wheels this
morning, and told us so."

"And he said we should not fail to visit the beautiful chains of lakes
and fir-forests around Silkeborg," put in Karl. "He told us that
Silkeborg was once just a manor, the property of the bishops of Aarhus;
and that it came to be built in such a funny way. He said that one of
the bishops was so charmed with the scenery in that part of the country
that he took a vow that he would build a house wherever his silk cap,
which a gust of wind had blown away, should remain. And so the strange
name came about. Isn't that a funny story, Karen? Can't we go over to
Silkeborg right now, Aunt Else?"

"Oh, not to-day, Karl, for it's much too late. Besides, the sky looks
threatening. I thought I heard something like low, distant thunder
just a moment ago. But to-morrow we can take an all-day trip over to
Mt. Himmelbjaerg and back, if we're all up bright and early in the
morning," said Fru Ingemann.

They were stopping with the Petersen family, in a little red-roofed,
many-gabled house on a quiet side street in Aarhus. Karen and her
mother had taken a short walk through the residential portion of the
old town and back, and the two boys had been out on their wheels most
of the day, eagerly exploring every nook and cranny of the healthy
little trading city on the Kattegat, which was a town of standing in
the far-off days when Copenhagen was but a mere little fishing village.
They had ridden past the Public Library, the artistic Custom-house,
pretty little theatre, the interesting Art Gallery, with its fine
collections by Danish artists, the grim old red-brick Gothic Cathedral,
with its gables, narrow pointed windows and massive tower, and finally
down to the busy harbor of Jutland's thriving capital, where large
vessels enter, for it is built out on the open shore.

"Aunt Else, the other day, I remember, you called Jutland 'the
peninsula;' Fru Petersen always says 'the Continent;' and once I heard
somebody speak of 'us Islanders;' so which is it?" asked Karl.

"I'm not surprised that you are confused, Karl. I will try to explain
it all to you," said his aunt. "Denmark is literally an Island Kingdom,
for she has about two hundred islands in all, situated at the entrance
of the Baltic. Since the cutting of the Kiel Canal, even Jutland, which
originally was, and still is in name, the Cimbrian Peninsula, has
now become in reality an island, some of whose parts, being actually
below the sea-level, are protected by dykes and embankments. Even the
Limfjord, which is no longer a fjord but a Sound, cuts Jutland in two
again, adding one more to the list of Denmark's many islands. Even
Copenhagen, Denmark's capital, is built upon two islands,--the great
island of Zealand and the little island of Slotsholmen, over which it
extends.

"Besides these, and many other smaller islands of the Danish
archipelago, Denmark has colonies, much larger than herself, which,
strangely enough, are all islands. One is Iceland, with its volcanic
fires and geysers spouting through the ice; and the great snow-buried
island of Greenland is another of Denmark's frigid possessions. There
is also a group of islands in the West Indies.[19]

"Yes, Aunt Else, thank you for telling me all about it. But I do wish
I knew what father's 'great surprise' is to be!" sleepily murmured
Karl, closing his eyes. "Valdemar, you were going to tell us all about
Denmark's kings. Won't you do it now?"

"Yes, do, brother," begged Karen, as she yawned and buried her flaxen
head in a big, soft pillow.

"Tell my best stories to such a sleepy audience? I guess not!" said
Valdemar, himself yawning.

"Such a sleepy lot of children! Off to bed, every one of you, and up
early in the morning," said Fru Ingemann, kissing them good night.

Hardly had they been in bed an hour, when a terrific thunder-storm
broke over Aarhus. With the first deafening crash of thunder, the whole
Petersen family sprang from their beds, dressed and rushed to the
sitting-room, where they huddled around the great tile stove, their
arms loaded down with their most treasured family possessions, Fru
Petersen herself carrying the family plate and the cherished recipe
book, which in Danish households is handed down from grandmother to
mother and daughter.

The storm passed as quickly as it had come. By morning the ground was
dry, the sky fair and blue, and Fru Ingemann and her charges well on
their way to famous old Himmelbjaerg, which means Heaven's Mountain,
for it is the highest spot in all Denmark.

"Why didn't we all jump out of our beds last night, too, mother,"
questioned Karen, as their train was passing through much low, hilly
country, in the midst of beautiful woods and lakes.

"Oh, that was just _noget snak_,[20] Karen. The Petersens were brought
up in the country, and they were afraid of fire by lightning. But here
we are, Karl, in the scattered little town of Silkeborg, where the
bishop's silk cap blew."

They first armed themselves with a large basket of provisions, then
took a trim little motor-boat, which carried them past woods and
gardens and picturesque little stork-inhabited farmsteads, up a
pleasant river which soon widened into a lake, and then from one blue
lake into another, on and on, until they finally stopped at the foot
of heather-covered old Himmelbjaerg, on whose summit they could see a
tall, obelisk-like monument.

"It's Denmark's Pike's Peak! Isn't it, Aunt Else?" exclaimed Karl in
delight. "Father and I have climbed Pike's Peak in Colorado, and, I
can tell you, mountain climbing is just lots of fun! Can't we go to the
very top to-day, Aunt Else?"

With their long alpenstocks, Karen and the boys led the way up the
gentle slope, while Fru Ingemann closely followed with the basket of
good things to eat--_smörrebröd_, oranges, tarts, cake and sugar-plums,
which disappeared as though by magic when they spread them on the grass
in the shadow of the great brick tower.

The view from the "Kol," or top, was indescribably beautiful, reaching
as far as eye could see over far-stretching forests, and valleys and
corn fields and chains of lakes, in every direction to the unbroken
horizon.

"Mother, mother! how wonderful!" exclaimed Valdemar, after he had
looked long and silently at the impressive scene before him. "It's like
one of Turner's great paintings!"

[Illustration: "THEY SPREAD THEM ON THE GRASS IN THE SHADOW OF THE
GREAT BRICK TOWER"]

The grass on the mountain-side waved in the strong summer wind.
Beetles hummed, insects buzzed in the heather about them, and a little
field-lark, perched on a near-by beech-tree, poured forth its song,
while Karen chased the brilliant-winged butterflies as they dashed
through the sunlight.

"'Erected by Frederik VII,'" read Valdemar aloud, deciphering the
inscription on the base of the brick tower.

Karen and Karl came running up, their arms full of mountain
wild-flowers they had found almost hidden among the deep heather.

"Valdemar, are you going to tell us all about the Danish kings now?"
urged Karl, who was a good student of United States history, and loved
hero-tales of any country. "Please start at the very beginning. Karen
wants to hear, too."

"And, after the story is finished, perhaps we shall have time for a
little row on the lake," added Fru Ingemann.

Quickly they ranged themselves comfortably on the grass in the shade
of one of Himmelbjaerg's giant old beeches, whose long arms swept the
ground about them.

"Denmark means 'land of dark woods,'" began Valdemar, who loved his
beautiful country, and was familiar with her legends and history from
his babyhood up. "The Northmen were a fire-worshipping heathen people,
according to Snorre Sturlason, who says that Odin, their chief god, was
a real personage, who used to appear to men. But all this early history
of Denmark is so full of legend, petty fights of kings, piratical
exploits, and strange, wild stories and romances of the Skalds, that it
is very hard to tell which is fact or fable, until we come to the last
thousand years of Danish history.

"But in those early mythological days, when Denmark was covered with
dark forests of mighty firs, Dan the Famous was one of the earliest
kings, reigning in 1038 B. C. He became powerful, after uniting many
small chieftains to himself, and so, according to some authorities, the
country was called 'Danmark,' or the border of the 'Dans,' or Danes.

"Gorm the Old, in the middle of the ninth century, was really the first
king to rule over the whole of Denmark, and his was called the Golden
Age. His beautiful young wife, Queen Thyra Dannebod (the Dane's Joy),
was full of goodness and wisdom, and after Gorm's death, she built the
famous Dannewirke, a great wall that stretched across Denmark from
the North Sea to the Baltic, for her people's protection against the
fearful inroads and plunderings of their southern neighbors. One may
see the graves near Jellinge, to-day, of Gorm the Old and Queen Thyra,
two heather-covered, flat-topped cairns marked by massive old Runic
stones.

"Then Gorm's son, King Harold Blaatand (Blue-tooth), ruled over
Denmark, and was slain one night as he slept by a camp-fire, by the
gold-tipped arrow of his heathen enemy, Planatoke. After him came his
son, Svend Tveskaeg, who commenced the conquest of England, which was
ended by Knud den Store, or Canute the Great, thus uniting the crowns
of both kingdoms during his reign and that of his son, Harthaknud
(Hardicanute), who was followed by King Svend Estridsen.

"Sometime I must tell Karl some of the wonderful tales I've read
about all these old kings--tales re-told from the ancient Sagas and
Chronicles, with their warrior-songs, giant-songs, hero-tales and
ballads. Danish literature is full of them.

"But now we come to the three great Valdemars, and their glorious
battles."

"And all about our _Dannebrog_--the flag that fell from heaven,
Valdemar," broke in Karen, who never could hear that story often
enough.

"And tell us all about the king who was put into a bag, won't you,
Valdemar?" urged Karl.

"Yes, I'm coming right now to both those stories, which happened in the
reign of Valdemar II. But first I want to say that it was Valdemar I
who cleared the Baltic and North Seas of all the terrible Wend pirates,
and it was also during his reign that Denmark's war-like bishop,
Absalon, founded Copenhagen and gave the people a constitution.

"With Valdemar II a great and glorious era for Denmark set in. The old
ballads and folk-songs tell how he courted Dagmar, the fair Bohemian
princess, for his bride, and never was Danish queen more beloved by her
people.

"Indeed, the Golden Age seemed to have returned to Denmark under the
early reign of this successful young monarch, who was as knightly
and handsome as he was courageous. His empire grew until he finally
became master of Holstein, Schwerin, and all the provinces of Northern
Germany, and his people called him Valdemar Seir (the Victorious).
When the Pope granted him sovereignty over all the peoples he could
convert, he set out upon a crusade against the pagans of Esthonia,
with more than a thousand ships, and many thousands of men. With the
Pope's blessing he sailed across the Baltic, but so vast did the host
of the enemy appear, as his fleet neared the shore, that the Danes at
first feared to land. But their archbishop reassured them, and they
landed in safety. Towards evening, with King Valdemar at their head,
the battle raged furiously. The struggle grew fiercer and fiercer,
until the Danes, who were outnumbered, were beginning to give way, when
there arose a great cry: 'The Banner! The Banner!' Pagan and Christian
paused. All eyes turned towards the sky, where, as though miraculously
flung from heaven, was seen falling into the midst of the Christian
ranks a blood-red banner bearing a great white cross,--our sacred
_Dannebrog_. 'For God and the King,' cried the crusading Christians, as
they seized the Heaven-sent flag, and again charged their enemy, who
now fled in terror. The victory was won, and the _Dannebrog_, from that
hour, became the sacred national standard of Denmark.

"Now I'm coming to the 'king in a bag' story, Karl," said Valdemar.
"Denmark's power was now supreme throughout Scandinavia, Northern
Germany and even over to Russia. Valdemar's reign was at its height.
His people adored him. But there were secret foes--the conquered
princes of Germany--awaiting his downfall. Among them was one in
particular called Black Henry, who hated Valdemar, and was biding his
chance to overthrow, if not to kill him. All in one single night the
treacherous deed was done. Wearied by a day spent in hunting, the King
and his son slept that night in a small, unguarded tent in the woods of
the little island on Lyö. Suddenly their slumber was broken into by an
unseen foe. The King could scarcely move, or speak, or see, or breathe.
Black Henry had fallen upon King Valdemar and his son, bound, gagged
and tied them up into two bags, and fled with his royal captives to a
waiting boat in the river, and hurried them to Germany, where they were
thrown into prison.

"Some years after, the King was ransomed by his loyal people with gold
and lands, and he finally returned to his beloved Denmark amid the
greatest rejoicing, to find most of his splendor gone. He was no longer
king of a great empire, but he had his people's love, and spent his
remaining years faithfully improving all the laws of his country."

"Oh, what glorious stories you do tell!" exclaimed Karl, who, with
Karen, had been listening spell-bound to the end. "I shall never again
see the famous old _Dannebrog_, without thinking of that wonderful
story of how it fell from heaven, and saved the battle for the Danes."

"If Valdemar never makes his mark in the world as a celebrated
sculptor, he certainly will as a great historian, with that memory of
his," said his mother, indulgently. The afternoon sun was sinking in
the west as they made their way down the mountainside, and soon left
beautiful old Himmelbjaerg far behind.

FOOTNOTES:

[Footnote 19: In 1902 the United States negotiated with Denmark for the
purchase of St. Thomas, one of these islands, as a coaling station,
or naval base; but the Danish Rigsdag refused, by a single vote, to
authorize the sale. It is believed that the matter will shortly be
again considered by the two countries.]

[Footnote 20: Some nonsense.]




CHAPTER VII

THE STORY OF THE DANISH "AHLHEDE"


SOON they were tramping past wind-tossed rye-fields and through
sweet-smelling meadows from which, every now and then, a long-legged
stork flapped its wings and flew skyward at their approach.

Their way to the boats of pretty Tul Lake,--gleaming through the trees
in the sunlight,--lay along the banks of the Gudenna River, which
has its source among the picturesque hills near Veile; then meanders
northward through ranges of hills and green fields, winding with many
a bend and curve on past old Himmelbjaerg, past Silkeborg and Randers,
finally emptying through Randers Fjord into the Kattegat.

"Are you looking for the row-boats?" came a sweet voice just behind
them. "They are just around the bend. I will show you the way."

Turning in the direction of the voice, Valdemar saw a pretty,
rosy-cheeked, blue-eyed little peasant girl, in embroidered bodice and
cap, carrying a great arm-load of poppies and forget-me-nots, and,
stiltily walking along the middle of the road back of her, was a great
white, red-billed stork.

"There are the boats now," she said, pointing down a wooded bank just
ahead of them, and turning to go. Fru Ingemann offered her a small coin
with her thanks and a smile, but the proud child refused the coin with
an indignant: "_Nej tak! Ingenting! Ingenting!_"[21] and started on her
way,--the stork still following in stately tread.

"Is that your stork?" Karl couldn't help calling after her, for he
thought it awfully funny to see the big white stork following a little
girl in such friendly fashion.

"My stork? Why, no! I have no stork," laughed the merry-faced little
peasant maid. "But there is a stork's nest on the top of the white
church tower over there, and another one up on farmer Andersen's
chimney, where he placed an old wagon wheel last year for them. And
over yonder, in the eaves of the village houses, there must be several
hundred storks. They are very tame, and often follow the plough in
search of food for their nestlings, which they find in the newly-turned
earth. This is their nesting time now. Then, when fall comes, they will
fly with their little ones down to France and Egypt for the winter. But
the same storks always come back. This same one followed me about last
year. I think it knows me."

In Karl's land there were no friendly, red-legged storks stalking about
the country roads, but he had read all about them in his "Andersen's
Fairy Tales."

"Storks bring happiness and good luck," explained Valdemar, "and to
kill a stork in Denmark is a greater crime, if anything, than to kill a
fox in England."

As the boat moved out into the blue lake, through the silent reeds
and water-lilies along the shore, with its drowsy white swans, Karl
could still see in the distance the little peasant girl with her
wild-flowers, the stork in the middle of the road still keeping stately
pace with her. Then he burst out laughing at the funny sight.

Valdemar and Karl were both good oarsmen, and so they rowed far
out across the lake, then drifted lazily along, while Fru Ingemann
entertained them with one of Evald's charming fairy-tales, parts of
Öhlenschläger's delightful "Aladdin," and tales from old Danish
Saga-lore.

"Mother, won't you sing something?" begged Valdemar, who always loved
to hear his mother's beautiful voice.

"Yes, while you are both rowing back to shore, for it is growing late,"
said Fru Ingemann, as she began and sang for them one of Weyses's old
Saga-like romances.

The cool evening breezes, whispering among the trees, told them that
the long, happy day was over, and that they must catch their train back
to Aarhus at once.

Then came the day when they went by boat down the coast and sailed up
Veile Fjord, to spend two happy days at the Munkebjerg,[22] with many
a ramble through the woods, guided to and from all the loveliest views
by following the red or the yellow arrows on the trees, pausing now and
then, after a stiff climb, to rest a moment in front of some little
wooden chalet, or to sit and enjoy the scene from Atilla's Bench or
Baron Lovenskjold's Bench, if they had followed the red route, or at
Ryeholm's Bench or The Bench of the Four-Leaved Clover, when they had
followed the yellow marks.

And from Munkebjerg they had gone to Jellinge, a town perched upon
the breezy upland, and there they saw the two large, flat-topped,
heather-covered "barrows," or graves, of Gorm the Old and Queen Thyra,
of which Valdemar had been telling them, and Karl was surprised to hear
that there still remained in Zealand, alone, some thousands of these
Viking cairns, or Warrior's Hills, as they are called.

Then, as the end of their short week drew near, the children begged Fru
Ingemann to take them by motor-car to Randers, where the famous annual
Horse-Fair was being held, and they strolled through the streets of
the cheerful old town, with its quaint old houses with their slanting
roofs and protruding windows.

The Danish flag, with its sharp white cross on a blood-red field,
fluttered everywhere. Hundreds of them decorated the exhibition field,
to which the towns-folk and farmers, in their Sunday-best, swarmed,
from far and near, to hear the speeches and witness the awarding of
prizes to the superbly groomed, arch-necked horses of the famous
Jutland breed.

The children had hoped to see the peasants still wearing Hessian
boots and velvet coats covered with great silver buttons, but Fru
Ingemann told them it was fifty years too late for that. They bought
tickets--little bits of blue and white ribbon with "Randers" and the
date printed on them--to the cake-man's booth, and there they bought
all sorts of cakes fantastically made into queer-shaped men and horses
and hearts, all covered with sugar and almonds and candies, each with
a little motto on it.

Karen soon grew tired and sleepy, so they did not stay to witness
the general fun and frolic and peasant dancing at night. As they
left the grounds Karl, who was beginning to learn a few Danish
words, exclaimed at an advertisement he saw on a signboard:
_Industriforeningsbygningen_![23] "Valdemar, is all that just one
word?" he asked.

"Just one word, Karl," replied his cousin.

"As we are all to leave Monday morning for the Park, and Randers is
half-way there," said Fru Ingemann, "I have decided not to return to
Aarhus at all, but to remain here over Sunday."

No one wanted to go anywhere on Sunday, so the day was quietly passed
at home. In Monday morning's mail came a letter from Uncle Thor, asking
how soon Valdemar could start up to Skagen, and also a telegram from
Uncle Oscar, saying: "Meet me at noon, Monday, at Ribald. Pleasant
surprise for Karl."

"Oh, Aunt Else, what _can_ father's surprise be? I don't see how I
can ever wait to find out." But his aunt only advised him to be more
patient, for he would soon know.

"Tell me all about the Heath then, Aunt Else, and this Park, where we
are going," said Karl, as their train sped rapidly northward through
the low moorland hills, past clover fields where herds of fat red
Danish cattle stood separately tethered; past prosperous little farms,
some of them with their waving rye-fields, others all aglow with
yellowing grain.

"Long, long ago," began Fru Ingemann, "in the days when Grandmother
Ingemann was only a little girl, before there was any telegraphs or
telephones, the very heart of all Jutland--as large a space as the
whole island of Zealand--was just a dangerous, wild, barren desert, all
sand and peat-bogs. The few Heath-dwellers who tried to live there led
very lonely and dangerous lives. The Natmaend, a strange race of gypsy
robbers, smugglers and kidnappers, wandered there. History records many
dark tragedies enacted on the Heath. It was on Grathe Heath that young
King Valdemar the Great met and overpowered his treacherous enemy,
Svend; and, a century later, the Heath was the scene of a still grimmer
tragedy, the murder of King Erik by Marsk Stig.

"The Ahlhede, or All-Heath, as the Danes called it, had not always
been a desert-land, covered for miles with Viking barrows. There had
once been beautiful forests of spruce and oak and fir-trees stretching
over this four thousand miles of waste land. But what forests the long
droughts and merciless west winds and cold blasts from the North Sea
failed to destroy the ancient Vikings and their subjects cut down for
their ships, huts and for fuel, leaving only a great silent, desolate,
desert land. It remained thus for such ages that no one ever believed
that it could be reclaimed,--that is, no one until Captain Dalgas set
to working out his dreams and theories for conquering it. His hope
was to win back to Denmark, through the conquering of the Heath, the
territory lost through the Schlesvig-Holstein war. He formed the Heath
Society and replanted the treeless wastes.

"To-day, countless farmsteads, meadows and pastures of the Danish
peasantry dot the Heath from Germany to the Skaw. Trees again flourish;
all has been changed as if by magic, and the plough goes over more
and more acres of it every year, until a group of patriotic Danes,
like your Uncle Oscar, have taken alarm lest all the breezy stretches
of heather be reduced to farms, and none of the old-time Heath be
preserved untouched for its own natural beauty's sake."

"Uncle persuaded a lot of Danes away off in Chicago, where he lives,
to buy up a lot of the wildest and most beautiful part of it so that
Denmark might keep it forever as a Park. Isn't that it, mother?"
questioned Valdemar.

"Yes, exactly, Valdemar," replied his mother. "And, because of
the untiring efforts of a group of patriotic American Danes, like
your Uncle Oscar, a beautiful wild spot of three hundred acres up
in Northern Jutland, near Ribald, has been purchased, and will be
formally presented to the Danish government as a reservation, with the
one condition that, every year, in that spot, when Danish-Americans
cross the ocean to meet there and celebrate their Fourth of July on
Danish soil, the Stars and Stripes shall float above Denmark's sacred
_Dannebrog_. Now that everything is ready, the Park is to be formally
presented to the Danish Government."

"Presented to-day, mother?" asked Karen in surprise.

"Yes, this very afternoon. There will be a great crowd. Every steamer
for weeks past has been bringing over hundreds of Americans, and, Karl,
look out, for you may meet some of your Chicago friends among them."

"From home, Aunt Else? There's nobody I'd rather see from home than
my own mother!" said little Karl, rather wistfully. "Gee! I do wish I
could see my mother! I just wonder what daddy's 'great surprise' can
be! Oh, just look at the big crowd!"

The train had stopped. "Ribald!" sang out the conductor. In a twinkling
the car was emptied. As Fru Ingemann and her charges reached the
platform, Karl saw two waving handkerchiefs making their way through
the dense crowd towards him, and in an instant more he felt his
mother's arms around him.

"Mother! mother! I'm so glad you've come!" he cried in joy. "Daddy, you
did give me a pleasant surprise!" He laughed as Fru Ingemann and her
sister Amalia greeted each other.

"Aunt Amalia, won't you stay over here in Denmark with us all summer?"
urged Valdemar, as the happy little party was being driven rapidly on
their way to the Park.

"Yes, Valdemar,--that is, I'm going to remain until your Uncle Oscar
can get back from the United States again. That is why I have come--so
as to stay with Karl, and let him see some more of Denmark, during his
father's absence. And then I'm glad to see this wonderful Park, too, of
course."

"Why, Daddy! Must you go back to America, and leave us?" protested
Karl, who was having another surprise.

"I'm sorry, but business calls me back to Chicago at once, my little
Karl. I leave this afternoon, immediately after the festivities, but
I'll come back again soon. Here we are at the Park now."

As Mr. Hoffman, as president of the Danish-American Park, took his
place upon the speaker's platform, and began his address, welcoming
the thousands of American visitors he saw before him, back to the
Fatherland,--to the Park--_their_ Park forever,--a great cheer
arose, which was redoubled in volume as the Stars and Stripes were
impressively hoisted over the beloved _Dannebrog_--and then from a
thousand voices the Star Spangled Banner floated forth over the Danish
hills.

There were complimentary speeches by both the American and Danish
ministers, and by Crown Prince Christian. Then every one sang one of
those beautiful old national songs the Danes love so well to sing in
their woods, and Karl told Valdemar and Karen the story of the "Birth
of Old Glory,"--as the United States flag is sometimes called.

In the evening, the whole forest seemed one vast fairy-land, with
its myriad sparkling lights, strains of soft music, gay crowds and
waving flags. Multitudes of lamps, of all colors and sizes, swung from
the trees, throwing a romantic fairy-like light over the rustling
beech-trees. Torches had been stuck wherever it had been possible to
fasten them, and here and there a huge bon-fire flung its lurid glare
over the whole scene, sending up great volumes of black smoke into the
darkness overhead.

Three very tired and sleepy children were those whom Fru Ingemann put
to bed that night, even before their usual time. The happiness of the
long day--so full of new sights, surprises and excitement for Valdemar
as well as Karl--was only marred by the leave-taking of Uncle Oscar for
his long trip back to his home in far-away Chicago.

FOOTNOTES:

[Footnote 21: "No, thank you. Nothing! nothing!"]

[Footnote 22: Monk's Mountain.]

[Footnote 23: Manufacturers and Sealers' Associations Building.]




CHAPTER VIII

SKAGEN


TO Valdemar it seemed like a week, rather than just three days, since
he had bidden good-bye to his mother, Karen and Aunt Amalia, and
brought Karl with him up to the little painter's village of Skagen
on the Kattegat, where they were to spend the months of July and
August visiting Uncle Thor, who had built for himself one of the most
charming of all the pretty, long, low, vine-covered homes of the famous
Artist-Colony, of which he, as Court Painter, was by far the most
distinguished member.

Up here was Uncle Thor's summer studio, with its row of fifteen great
windows between which glorious red hollyhocks towered almost up
to the red roof-tiles. On the south, the windows overlooked a gay,
flower-massed garden where, on warm summer afternoons, the great
sculptor loved to chat with painter-friends, and serve tea under his
wind-swept old elms.

Here, in this bare and lofty studio, with its half-finished paintings
and groups in clay, and, if the day be chilly, its crackling wood
hearth-fire at the further end, throwing a flickering, rosy light over
all,--here Valdemar was to spend many hard, long hours every day under
his gifted godfather's instruction.

[Illustration: "IN THE CENTRE OF THE STUDIO STOOD THE UNFINISHED STATUE
OF THE LITTLE CROWN PRINCE"]

"In the whole of Denmark was there ever any boy half so fortunate?"
thought Valdemar to himself, as he made a mental resolution to show
Uncle Thor his appreciation by the hardest work of his life. Valdemar
could work hard, and he meant not only to prove to his uncle what
earnest toil and definite purpose could do, but also to win his
offer to send him to the Academy in the fall.

On a low platform, in the centre of the studio, stood the unfinished
statue of the little Crown Prince Olaf of Norway which Uncle Thor had
commenced in Copenhagen at the Royal Palace. Day by day it was nearing
completion.

"And here," said Valdemar's great teacher, uncovering a smaller but
similar clay figure of the same charming subject, "is work my ambitious
little pupil is to finish before he leaves Skagen. It will be hard
work, Valdemar, and it will put your ability as a young sculptor to a
fine test. But you can do it, Valdemar, and do it creditably, too!"

"Oh, Uncle Thor! Do you really think so? I'll try hard enough!"
promised the lad as he set to work in good earnest.

The long hours, which Valdemar spent daily in the studio, Karl passed
either out of doors or in reading all the fascinating books on Danish
history in Uncle Thor's library.

There were frequent letters to both boys from Fanö, the little island
in the North Sea, where Karen, her mother, and Aunt Amalia were
spending the summer. Later they were going to spend a few weeks on a
large farm, for a change.

And so the weeks passed. Finally Holme Week, with its clear, bright
evenings, came; but the midsummer sun was growing uncomfortably warm
even as far north as Skagen.

Valdemar's work on his little Prince Olaf statue was so far advanced
that Uncle Thor readily consented when the two boys begged him to let
them take the dog, Frederik, along with them, and tramp over the two
miles of mountainous sand-ridges which led to Denmark's most northern
point, Grenen, or the Gren,--a mere desolate sand-reef, the last
little tip of Jutland's mainland, which extends between the waters of
the North Sea and the Baltic.

The only signs of life the boys passed on the way, as they trudged
along together, often ankle-deep in the sand, were a few long-legged
birds, and several huge hares which shot across the road in front of
them.

"We didn't bring along more than half the sand-hills with us, did we,
Valdemar?" laughed Karl, as they threw themselves down on the beach at
Grenen, emptied the sand from their shoes, and donned their bathing
suits.

"Talking about sand, Karl, some day I must show you all that remains of
an old Gothic church tower near Skagen. One day, during a service, a
great sand-storm came up and buried the church itself so suddenly that
the only escape the people had was from the belfry. That is all that
can be seen of that church even to-day."

Frederik barked loudly and dashed back and forth after the two boys,
who were soon bubbling over with the fun and excitement of dipping
their feet first into the breakers of the Skager-Rak, and then into
the waters of the Kattegat, the warm July salt wind and spray tanning
their bare arms and faces. Then, Frederik following, Valdemar swam far
out into the sea and back again, with the utmost ease. All Danish boys
can swim well, and Valdemar wanted to give Karl a demonstration of his
ability as an expert swimmer.

"Kattegat! Skager-Rak!" shouted Karl, who liked something in the sound
of the words. "Grenen's great! But, honest, Valdemar, never in my life
did I expect to bathe in both these raging seas at once! But here I
go--look now!" and he plunged out into the breakers. Frederik dashed
after him to make sure that he was safe, then came bounding back again
to Valdemar.

"Ow! ow!" cried Karl, limping back on one foot.

"Crabber?" inquired Valdemar. "Uncle Thor warned us to look out for
crabs and shrimps up here on the beach. You sit down here and rest,
Karl. I'm going to gather some of those fine sea-gull's feathers
scattered along the beach for you to take back home with you for your
collection of Danish souvenirs. It was mighty nice of Uncle Thor to
give you that letter from King Frederik!"

"And I'm going to put my shoes and stockings right back on again while
you're gone!" said Karl, surveying his painful foot with a frown.

"Oh, look, Karl!" exclaimed Valdemar, as he soon came running back, his
arms full of something. "Look what I've found for you! Sea-gulls' eggs!
All greenish, with brown peppery spots on them, and here's a lot of the
loveliest white wing-feathers, every one tipped with black! They're
all for you, Karl."

"Oh, thank you, Valdemar. Let's blow the eggs. Do you know how?"

"Yes, of course. I've got a piece of wire in my pocket. You just run
this wire straight through both ends--so! Then blow and blow!"

Together the boys had soon blown all the eggs, and tied them up with
the feathers in a piece of old fish-net they found on the beach. Then
Karl watched Valdemar while he made a hasty sketch of Skagen Fyr, the
great white lighthouse towering above the sand-hummocks near the Signal
Station, where it is said that every year seventy thousand ships are
signalled.

As they started on their two-mile tramp over the desolate sand-ridges
back to Skagen, Valdemar gave one last lingering look towards the wild,
wind-swept stretch of endless beach they were leaving, where the North
Sea and the Baltic have battled against each other for countless
ages, with one ceaseless roar. Back of them, range after range of low
shifting sand-dunes glistened in the sun, as they stretched towards the
unbroken horizon in every direction. It was a strange new world to both
boys.

"What are you thinking so long about, Valdemar?" asked Karl.

"Oh, Karl, it was off there that our noble Tordenskjold's little
frigate, _White Eagle_, pursued the great Swedish man-of-war _Ösel_,
and made her fly in terror. There's something about the very desolation
of this place that, I like," said Valdemar. "Something strange, and
picturesque, and romantic, I mean, Karl. One feels some way--up here at
the Gren--as though he had actually reached the world's end! I'd like
to come back up here often. Wouldn't you, Karl?"

"No! There's something I don't like one bit about it! I liked the
Massachusetts Cape Cod beach at home; but that was different. I'd hate
to have to live very long anywhere near here! Romantic isn't the right
word, Valdemar. It's a lonely, wild, and forsaken spot, with nothing at
all 'romantic' about it in my eyes. To me it feels like the 'jumping
off place,' all right. And I've heard, too, Valdemar, that when a great
storm is blowing, and the waves are rolling mountain high, that there
are just terrible shipwrecks up here at this dangerous point! Down
at the Skagen Hotel, the figureheads and name-boards, that they have
collected from ships of all nations, tell the tale, Valdemar."

"That's true. There was the wreck of the _Daphne_, with the lives of
eight of the brave life-saving crew lost. Sometimes there are twenty
shipwrecks a year. But, Karl, this is the sea that made Vikings! Over
these same seas, where our smoky steamers now pass, once danced _Long
Ship_, _Serpent_ and _Dragon_, with their gilded dragon-beaks gleaming
in the sunlight! Can't you see them, Karl? I can! Uncle Thor has
often told me the wonderful Viking tales. And I've read about their
marvellous courage and daring. The Eddas and Sagas of the Vikings are
rich in lore of those fiery-hearted warriors, who sailed over the
stormy seas in their fleets of light ash-wood ships, conquering far and
wide, and meeting death light-heartedly! They say some great Viking
chief is buried near here. Their cairns and barrows by thousands cover
Denmark to-day."

"Oh, I've read about them at home," answered Karl, who loved courage
and bravery as much as did any healthy American boy, but who loved also
to tease. "They were just a race of bold sea-robbers, and pirates,
always 'hatching their felonious little plans,' always ready to burn
and kill; and, according to history, some of the deaths they dealt out
to their enemies were truly 'Vikingish.'"

"And yet, Karl, the ancient Sagas and chronicles tell that it was our
brave Vikings who first of all discovered your North America, and
founded a colony they called Vineland, near where your great Harvard
College is to-day. The Sagas say that, five hundred years before
Columbus lived, Viking Biarne sailed to America with his ship _Eyrar_,
and that, later, Lief, a son of Eric the Red, went over to America,
too."

"Yes, I know. I've read Longfellow's poem, 'The Skeleton in Armor,'
and I've seen the 'Old Mill' at Newport, which was long believed to be
a Viking relic," said Karl. "But we know differently now. Nothing has
been really proved."

The sun was sinking in the west as the two tired, but happy boys
reached the outskirts of the straggling little village of Skagen, and
trudged down the sandy road which led in and out among the fishermen's
huts, with their tarred or heavily thatched roofs, and color-washed
walls--some of them even built from wreckage.

Strings of fish, strung from pole to pole, were hung out to dry.
Groups of sturdy fish-wives, here and there, with bronzed arms bare
to the shoulder, and prettily kerchiefed heads, sat at tubs, dressing
flounders for drying; and from the doorway of one hut came a voice so
sweet and clear, crooning a quaint old Danish lullaby to the sleeping
baby in the mother's arms, that the boys paused to listen as she sang:

    "_Den lille Ole, med Paraplyen
      Han kender alle Smaa Folk i Byen
      Hver lille Pige, hver lille Dreng,
      De sover sodt i deres lille Seng._"

"That was a pretty song. Tell me what it was all about," asked Karl, as
they hurried on at a more rapid gait, for they were getting hungrier
every minute.

"Oh, it was just a little folk-song every Dane knows. She was singing
to her baby about the 'Sandman,' or _den lille Ole_, as we Danes say.
She was telling him that the 'Sandman, with his umbrella, knows all
about the little folks in town. Each little girl--each little boy--they
are all sleeping sweetly in their beds.'"

They passed an old fisherman, mackintosh-clad, and another one in
jersey and high boots, both hurrying towards the beach, where, in
the gathering twilight, they could see a dim craft, a small fishing
boat, with a few dark figures plying their trade, slowly rounding the
promontory, its lights reflecting picturesquely in the water.

"Some day we must come back earlier, when more of the fishermen are
home from their trips, and watch the crews at practice," said Valdemar.
"These Skagen fishermen are true sons of the Vikings. It is said that
there was one, once, who boasted of having saved two hundred lives."

"I hope you didn't worry about our getting home so late, Uncle Thor,"
said Valdemar, at the supper table that night.

"No, but here is a letter for you."

"Hurrah!" exclaimed Valdemar, as he finished reading it. "It's from
mother. She says that Grandmother Ingemann has invited us all to spend
Christmas with her down in Odense, and that Aage will be home for his
vacation from the Military College, and be there with us, and Uncle
Oscar, too, will be back again from America. Mother has decided that I
am not to return to school until after Christmas, for she thinks that
Karl and I are learning more by seeing our country than we could learn
in school. And, best of all, mother says that I can remain up here
studying with you, Uncle Thor, until September!"

"Hurrah!" said Karl. "No school until New Year's for me!"

"That means five more weeks up here with you, dear Uncle Thor!"
continued Valdemar. "Now I can entirely finish the task you gave me to
do, the Prince Olaf statue. I'm so glad, Uncle Thor!"

"And I'm glad, too, Valdemar, for you are doing me great credit as a
pupil. I am going to be very proud of that statue of yours, Valdemar,
when it is finished."

These last five weeks passed for Valdemar much as the first five
had--in the studio.

"Study--diligent, earnest and honest," said Uncle Thor, "will win many
honors for you when you are older, Valdemar. If you work hard, you
should some day gather some of the roses that strew the path of the
Danish artist, my boy."

"But once you said that Denmark was almost overcrowded with art
students, Uncle Thor, didn't you?"

"That is true. But many of them fail to go on with their work; they
lose courage and drop out. Others become interested in something else,
and so leave their art studies. The few who do keep on usually learn
all they can from the art schools in Denmark, and then go to Italy for
further study."

"Yes, as you did, Uncle Thor, and as Thorvaldsen did, too," said
Valdemar. "Oh, Uncle Thor! Do you think that, when I am older, I may
ever be able to study in Italy?"

"My dear little Valdemar, anything is possible for you, if you work
hard enough," was the great artist's answer.




CHAPTER IX

A DANISH PEASANT WEDDING


KAREN'S fair skin was tanned so many shades darker than her flaxen
locks that Valdemar and Karl hardly knew her. Far down on the
delightful _Vesterhavet_,[24] on the sandy little island of Fanö, she
had spent the happy summer-time with her mother and Aunt Amalia, first
at the seashore, and later on the great farm of Peder Sörensen, near
Nordby, where, most of the time, she had played out of doors in the sun
and wind.

The merry harvest season had passed soon after Valdemar and Karl had
arrived. They remembered how the harvesters had laid aside the last
sheaf, decorated it with flowers and ribbons, and carried it in
procession. Then had followed the great _Höst Gilde_, or Harvest Feast,
a very festive function when sturdy men and rosy-cheeked maidens danced
hand-in-hand.

Then, later, in the same beautiful month of October, had followed
another folk-festival, and Mortin's Day,[25] when in the evening
everybody ate "Mortin's Goose," stuffed with boiled apples and black
fruit.

Sometimes, on some of the children's many trips over to play on the
beach by the West Sea, they had brought back pieces of amber washed up
by the water. Karl found some pretty big pieces to add to his rapidly
growing collection of Danish souvenirs, which now included not only the
coral specimens, sea-gull's eggs and wing-feathers, but Fanö amber,
and, best of all, Uncle Thor's gift of the great white envelope and
letter from the Royal Palace.

Peder Sörensen was not a farmer himself. Like most of the men of
Fanö, he was a sailor. It was the Fanö wives who, in their picturesque
though rather unbecoming dress, cultivated the land, drove the cattle
to pasture and the sheep to graze among the sand-hills, and it was they
who milked the fine "Red Danish" cows at night, and made the far-famed
"Best Danish" butter, with which they welcomed home their seafaring
husbands.

Fru Anna Sörensen, who had studied farming and dairying at the
Agricultural College, always presented a neat and attractive appearance
in her dark blue dress with its one note of bright color down around
the very hem, and her quaint red and blue kerchief head-dress, with
its inevitable loose ends, which Valdemar graphically described as
"rabbit's ears."

All the women of Fanö dressed just so, except, of course, upon some
great occasion like Lowisa Nielsen's wedding, which was to take place
in November.

Almost before they knew it, the short summer had flown, and November,
with its cool, bright days, had come, bringing Lowisa Nielsen's wedding
invitation, which the _Bydemand_,[26] in white trousers, topboots, and
a nosegay in his buttonhole, carried over to the Sörensens on horseback.

For propriety's sake, Fru Sörensen allowed him to knock a second time
before opening the door, then politely asked him within.

"Greetings from the father and mother, and Lowisa, to yourself, your
husband and guests," he began, as he took the proffered seat. "Your
presence is truly desired at the wedding on Thursday next at ten
o'clock. Come early, accompany the bridal party to the church, and hear
their marriage service, return with them for dinner, remain for supper,
then amuse yourselves with dancing and games the whole night; and then
come again the next day, and take your places from the first day, and
they will be sure to do the same for you when wanted from choice, on
some enjoyable occasion."

This unique invitation being delivered, the _Bydemand_ arose as if
to go, but Fru Sörensen, with Danish hospitality, and according to
an old custom, quickly produced a flagon of home-brewed beer, and a
raisin-decorated wheaten cake, which she offered him.

As he finished the flagon and was about to leave, he turned at the door
to add, as though an afterthought: "Then you must not forget to send a
convenient amount of butter, eggs, a pail of fresh milk and two jars of
cream."

"I will gladly," replied Fru Sörensen, as he departed.

On the wedding morning, at the appointed time, Fru Anna Sörensen and
her guests, Fru Ingemann, Mrs. Hoffman, and the children, who had
never seen a peasant wedding before, drove over to the great Nielsen
_Bonnegaard_,[27] passed through the massive stone gateway, and into
the open courtyard. They were graciously received by Fru Nielsen, and
seated with the other guests upon wooden benches ranged around the
walls of a spacious family apartment, whose polished rafters converged
into a sharp-spiked peak at the centre.

Lowisa, a fair-haired, blue-eyed Danish peasant maiden, to-day
looked unusually attractive, decked out in bridal array,--a pretty
but tight-fitting homespun, escaping the floor all around by several
inches. From Lowisa's richly gold-embroidered, tall scarlet cap, or
"hood," as the Danes call it, hung pendent innumerable brilliant
ornaments--round balls of metal and other fantastic dangles, all waving
and twinkling as she moved. Extending from the back were vast bows and
streamers of scarlet ribbon, under which she wore a head-dress of very
rare and delicate lace. And the filmy white fichu, which crossed over
her bosom, disclosed a rounded throat, circled by a bangle necklace of
gold and silver coins.

As soon as the last guest had arrived, the whole party was driven over
to the church,--the bride and her family in the forward "rock-away,"
the bridegroom in the next, then, in another, a band of rustic
musicians, who, as soon as all the guests were seated in the different
vehicles, struck up a lively air.

At the proper moment, the bridegroom, young Nils Rasmussen, a
fine-looking fellow of true Saxon type, took his position beside Lowisa
at the altar.

On returning to the house, the little church party was met by an eager,
expectant company of guests, who had been invited to join them for
the wedding-dinner. The bridal couple took their places at the middle
of the cross-tables, which were arranged to form a square, after
the fashion of ancient banquet tables, and, when all the guests were
seated, the serving-maids brought in great bowls of steaming rice, and
placed four to each table, deftly dividing the contents of each into
as many sections, by making deep cross-shaped indentures, into which
they sprinkled cinnamon and sugar and poured a cupful of hot butter.
Then each guest, four to a bowl, lifted his spoon, dipped it into
the delicious _gröd_, and began to eat. Meats followed, with wheaten
cakes, highly decorated, and home-brewed beer of a very peculiar, rich,
honeyed taste, and with the singing of a beautiful old Danish hymn the
repast was brought to a close.

Then the room was cleared and the dancing began. It was certainly a
beautiful sight, with every one decked out in festive attire.

"_Nie tak_,"[28] coyly refused each girl upon her first invitation to
dance, according to an old law of peasant decorum, which also prevented
the bridal couple, who led the dancing, from speaking to, or even
noticing each other again during the entire festivities.

As the afternoon wore on the dancing continued. Between seven and
eight, supper without rice was served, followed immediately by more
dancing, which continued until four o'clock in the morning.

By ten o'clock the next morning the fiddlers had again arrived, and the
dancing was renewed, this time with a noticeable increase in the number
of rosy-cheeked, snowy-haired, elderly couples, in quaint holiday dress
of homespun, with silver-buckled shoes. The bride continued to dance
gracefully and bravely on, although paling cheeks told of her weariness.

Fru Nielsen explained that the third and last day would only differ
from the first in that there would be fewer guests present, after
which all would begin making formal calls upon the bride, which was
considered the height of good form.

FOOTNOTES:

[Footnote 24: West Sea.]

[Footnote 25: So named for Martin Luther.]

[Footnote 26: The "Asking Man."]

[Footnote 27: Literally, "Peasant's Domain."]

[Footnote 28: "No, thank you."]




CHAPTER X

JUL-TIDE AT GRANDMOTHER INGEMANN'S


A FRESHLY fallen, deep, feathery snow covered Odense on Christmas Eve,
and the merry jingle of sleigh-bells was in the air, as the little
Ingemann party reached Fyen's prosperous capital.

Grandmother Ingemann did not live within the town itself, but a long
drive in a big sleigh brought her Christmas guests within sight of
the great old house with its many gables--all of the oddest stairway
design--where most of her long, happy life had been lived.

[Illustration: "'WELCOME! AND "GLAEDELIG JUL!'" CALLED OUT BOTH
GRANDFATHER AND GRANDMOTHER INGEMANN"]

Although it was only the middle of the wintry afternoon, darkness was
fast gathering, and from many a window on their way a candle's soft
glow shone out through the fluttering snow to guide the wayfarer to
warmth and cheer.

"Welcome! and _Glaedelig Jul_!"[29] called out both Grandfather and
Grandmother Ingemann, who, in spite of the cold, had appeared on the
door-step as the sleigh drew up.

"_Glaedelig Jul!_" cried Valdemar and Karen, kissing their dear
grandparents, as Fru Ingemann introduced Aunt Amalia and cousin Karl.

"Where's Uncle Thor, and where's Aage?" demanded Valdemar as they
entered the house. "And where's Daddy? Didn't Daddy come?" was Cousin
Karl's first question.

"Yes, dear children, everybody's here," gently answered Grandmother
Ingemann, smiling as she glanced out of the window.

Out rushed the children to welcome the sleigh that came jingling up
to the door, out of which jumped Uncle Thor, Aage, and Uncle Oscar,
just back from the States. Such huggings and greetings as then took
place! Never had there been such a happy Christmas family reunion at
Grandmother Ingemann's for long years and years!

Since his mother had last seen him, Aage had grown into a tall,
broad-shouldered young man who carried himself with such fine military
bearing--and preceded all his remarks with: "In my regiment"--that
Valdemar and Karl soon idolized him. And as for skating--well, he would
show them something in the half hour, or so, that still remained before
the time to start for the annual Christmas Eve service at the little
church on the hill.

Then it was Valdemar's turn to receive compliments. Uncle Thor had
great news! He announced that his talented little pupil's work had
appeared at the Fall Exhibit of the Academy,--and had won a prize!

"A prize at the Academy! Oh, Uncle Thor!" exclaimed Valdemar, throwing
his arms about his distinguished master's neck for joy. "Dear Uncle
Thor! You didn't even tell me that my statue was to be entered at the
Academy Exhibit this fall! Oh, I am so happy!"

Compliments showered upon him from Grandfather, and Grandmother, and
from his own dear mother, and everybody, so fast that he was glad to
make his escape with Aage and Karl, who were starting out to the frozen
lake, with their skates.

Aage and Valdemar, like all Danish boys, were famous skaters. Karl was
a fair one. Soon the two brothers were outdoing each other cutting
figure-eights, hearts and arrows on the ice, and Aage even cut the
face of his sweetheart. Then, as the music of a waltz Aunt Amalia was
playing reached them, they called: "Come on, Karl, it's easy," and
proceeded to waltz on the ice as gracefully as if on a ballroom floor.
But Karl fell flat, and felt he had made a miserable failure.

Then they all came rushing into the house at the sight of several
waiting sleighs at the door, which reminded them that it must be nearly
time for the five o'clock Christmas Eve service. Soon every one was
bundled into warm furs and crowded into the sleighs, servants and all,
and the happy little procession made its way through the falling snow
to the church.

As they passed through the village streets candle-lights gleamed from
hundreds of windows, and here and there the children caught glimpses
inside of brightly festooned little Christmas trees, and of sheaves
of wheat or rye, fastened to the window-shutters out in the snow for
the birds; and, strangest of all, Karl thought, were bowls of steaming
hot oatmeal standing on many door-steps. But his mother explained to
him that the bowls of oatmeal were placed there for the good little
_Jul-nissen_, the Little People, or Christmas Nixies, the knee-high,
little red-jacketed old men, with pointed red caps and long gray
beards, who are supposed to form a part of every good Danish household.

When Grandmother's sleighing party entered the little whitewashed
church, and took the places reserved for them, they found it already
full to overflowing, and a crowd gathering outside as well.

The smiling priest in his dignified long black gown and deep-gauffered
white _Pibekrave_[30] around his neck, joined heartily in the singing
of hymns and carols, which were re-echoed by the voices of the greater
throng standing out in the snow. Then followed the Christmas sermon,
and the usual touching prayer "for our brethren in South Jutland."

It was Holy Eve, the one night in all the year when services are held
by candle-light, and the myriad wax candles, burning on the altar,
threw a soft and mysterious light over the spruce and laurel boughs
decorating the chancel.

The light snowfall had become a blinding snow storm before the little
procession of sleighs had finally reached home, where the great
dinner of the year was awaiting them, with its roast goose, stuffed
with prunes and chestnuts, its cinnamon-flavored rice pudding, and a
famous Danish dessert called _Röd Gröd_, the repast ending with nuts,
Christmas cakes, candy and hot tea. Low over the table, illumined with
a dozen tiny, candle-lighted Christmas trees, hung green festoons of
laurel and spruce with a secreted sprig of mistletoe; while at every
one's place were little mementoes, stuffed Nixies, snappers, and a
small Danish flag,--except at Uncle Oscar's, Aunt Amalia's and Karl's
places, where the Stars and Stripes were thoughtfully combined with
the _Dannebrog_.

Towards the end of the dinner Grandfather Ingemann arose and proposed
a toast to "our Danish-American guests,"--whereupon all arose, touched
glasses and drank, uttering the word for health, "_Skaal!_" Again,
Grandfather Ingemann proposed the healths of "Our illustrious Court
Painter and his talented little pupil,"--when all again arose with
their host, and the process was repeated. The last toast was "for our
absent friends," after which Grandfather made a complimentary little
speech, wishing every one joy in the years to come.

Then all withdrew to the drawing-room, where the lights suddenly went
out, and the folding-doors of an adjoining room were flung wide, where,
in dazzling beauty, its topmost boughs brushing the rafters, stood
the great Jule-tree. Then every one formed a circle around the tree,
and Grandfather distributed a basket of hymn books, from which all
joined in singing that beautiful old Danish carol, "A Child is Born in
Bethlehem."

Then, to the soft notes of a violin, all joined hands again, and slowly
danced around the tree, singing as they danced another beautiful old
carol. The servants were then called in, and Grandfather Ingemann
called off the names, and distributed the presents. There were so many
gifts for every one, from little Karen up to Grandfather Ingemann
himself, that the floor was soon covered deep with the tissue-paper
wrappings.

When the laughter and merrymaking had reached its height, there came
a sharp ring at the door-bell, so sharp that every one paused in
strange expectation, and little Karen rushed to the door after the
maid. In the fast-falling snow stood a tall man in a green uniform
and a three-cornered hat, who handed a great white envelope to the
servant, with the words: "To Valdemar Ingemann, from his Majesty, King
Frederik," then quickly departed.

Karen rushed breathlessly back to her mother ahead of the serving-maid.
"Oh, mother! It was the King's _Jaeger_! Valdemar, it's for you! For
you!" she cried, as the awe-stricken maid put into the boy's hands the
great white envelope inscribed with the words: "To Valdemar Ingemann,
from his Majesty, the King."

Every one looked inquiringly at every one else, but in the Court
Painter's eye there lurked a knowing twinkle.

"Oh, mother! _mother!_ Oh, _Uncle Thor_!" excitedly exclaimed the
little artist, dancing about the room. "It's from my friend the King!
He says he has visited the Academy and seen with great pleasure my
statue of little Prince Olaf of Norway. He congratulates me upon
winning a prize, and, mother dear, he wants to see me at the Palace,
Thursday, at one!"

       *       *       *       *       *

Even before Twelfth Night had come and gone, the American relatives had
said their good-byes to Copenhagen and to the Ingemanns, and sailed for
New York. Valdemar, accompanied by his Uncle Thor, had made the call
at the Palace, and been entered as a student at the Academy, with the
King's promise to him of long years of study in Rome just as soon as he
was ready for it. So we too will bid good-bye to our ambitious little
Danish Cousin, with his rose-colored dreams of the future.

    THE END.

FOOTNOTES:

[Footnote 29: "Merry Christmas."]

[Footnote 30: Starched ruffle.]




Selections from The Page Company's Books for Young People


THE BLUE BONNET SERIES

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=A TEXAS BLUE BONNET=

By CAROLINE E. JACOBS.

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=BLUE BONNET'S RANCH PARTY=

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=BLUE BONNET IN BOSTON;= Or, BOARDING-SCHOOL DAYS AT MISS NORTH'S.

By CAROLINE E. JACOBS AND LELA HORN RICHARDS.

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By CAROLINE E. JACOBS AND LELA HORN RICHARDS.

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=BLUE BONNET--DÉBUTANTE=

By LELA HORN RICHARDS.

An interesting picture of the unfolding of life for Blue Bonnet.




THE YOUNG PIONEER SERIES

By HARRISON ADAMS

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=THE PIONEER BOYS OF THE YELLOWSTONE;= OR, LOST IN THE LAND OF WONDERS.

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By LOUISE M. BREITENBACH

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=ALMA AT HADLEY HALL=

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THE GIRLS OF FRIENDLY TERRACE SERIES

By HARRIET LUMMIS SMITH

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=PEGGY RAYMOND'S SCHOOL DAYS=

The book is delightfully written, and contains lots of exciting
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FAMOUS LEADERS SERIES

By CHARLES H. L. JOHNSTON

  _Each large 12mo, cloth decorative, illustrated, per volume_ $1.50


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=FAMOUS SCOUTS=

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HILDEGARDE-MARGARET SERIES

By LAURA E. RICHARDS

Eleven Volumes


The Hildegarde-Margaret Series, beginning with "Queen Hildegarde" and
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series of books for girls ever written.

  _Each large 12mo, cloth decorative, illustrated, per volume_   $1.25
  _The eleven volumes boxed as a set_                           $13.75


LIST OF TITLES

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    =HILDEGARDE'S HOLIDAY=

    =HILDEGARDE'S HOME=

    =HILDEGARDE'S NEIGHBORS=

    =HILDEGARDE'S HARVEST=

    =THREE MARGARETS=

    =MARGARET MONTFORT=

    =PEGGY=

    =RITA=

    =FERNLEY HOUSE=

    =THE MERRYWEATHERS=




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By LAURA E. RICHARDS

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=CAPTAIN JANUARY=

A charming idyl of New England coast life, whose success has been very
remarkable.

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    SAME, FRENCH TEXT. _Illustrated Holiday Edition_      $1.25


=MELODY:= THE STORY OF A CHILD.

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A companion to "Melody" and "Captain January."


=ROSIN THE BEAU=

A sequel to "Melody" and "Marie."


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=JIM OF HELLAS;= OR, IN DURANCE VILE, and a companion story, BETHESDA
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And a companion story, IN VERONA, being two delightful short stories of
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A charming collection of short stories and clever poems for children.


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THE BOYS' STORY OF THE RAILROAD SERIES

By BURTON E. STEVENSON

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(Trade Mark)

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    =TWO LITTLE KNIGHTS OF KENTUCKY=

    =THE GIANT SCISSORS=

    =BIG BROTHER=




THE JOHNSTON JEWEL SERIES

    _Each small 16mo, cloth decorative, with frontispiece
       and decorative text borders, per volume_      _Net_ $0.50


=IN THE DESERT OF WAITING:= THE LEGEND OF CAMELBACK MOUNTAIN.


=THE THREE WEAVERS:= A FAIRY TALE FOR FATHERS AND MOTHERS AS WELL AS
FOR THEIR DAUGHTERS.


=KEEPING TRYST:= A TALE OF KING ARTHUR'S TIME.


=THE LEGEND OF THE BLEEDING HEART=


=THE RESCUE OF PRINCESS WINSOME:= A FAIRY PLAY FOR OLD AND YOUNG.


=THE JESTER'S SWORD=


=THE LITTLE COLONEL'S GOOD TIMES BOOK=

    Uniform in size with the Little Colonel Series      $1.50
    Bound in white kid (morocco) and gold          _Net_ 3.00

Cover design and decorations by Peter Verberg.

"A mighty attractive volume in which the owner may record the good
times she has on decorated pages, and under the directions as it were
of Annie Fellows Johnston."--_Buffalo Express._

       *       *       *       *       *

Transcriber's Notes:

Obvious punctuation errors repaired.

Page 1, "lommetorklaede" changed to "lommetørklæde" (Karen, mit
lommetørklæde)

Page 34, "Raadhaus" changed to "Raadhus" (New Raadhus-plads)

Page 35, "Nytory" changed to "Nytorv" (Kongens Nytorv)






End of Project Gutenberg's Our Little Danish Cousin, by Luna May Innes